LONDON.- Conceived in close collaboration with Sadie Coles HQ, this presentation takes shape within the convivial and collective framework of Condo, a format grounded in hospitality, shared spaces and dialogue between galleries. The exhibition draws on this context to consider festive and social environments as sites of encounter and proximity, where communities take shape through gesture, presence and shared experience. Bringing together works from different generations and contexts, the presentation reflects on how celebration, intimacy and collective life intersect, shaping ways of being together that are at once joyful, fragile and politically charged.

The exhibition unfolds from a large inflatable sculpture by Zuzanna Czebatul in the form of a giant, hyperreal ecstasy pill, stamped with the words “Rush” and “Revolution.” Monumental yet ephemeral, the work functions as both a humorous and reflective monument to rave culture, particularly that of the nineteen eighties and nineties. Produced as part of an ongoing series initiated in 2021, the sculpture condenses the visual language and collective memory of club culture into a single oversized object.

Drawing from her own experience as a raver, bouncer and DJ within Berlin’s club scene, Czebatul approaches the pill as a cultural form loaded with political and social meaning. The synthetic drug MDMA, embraced for its disinhibiting and empathogenic effects, is read here alongside the broader history of pharmaceutical products that have shaped modern subjectivities, from birth control pills to antidepressants. The terms “Rush” and “Revolution” point to the tensions that animated rave culture at the time: acceleration, collective euphoria and the promise of social transformation within a globalised, merit driven world.

While the hope for sweeping political revolution has largely faded, the sculpture points to the persistence of club spaces as sites of small scale utopias. Monumental in scale yet temporary by nature, it frames nightlife as a space structured by shared sensations and collective states, where bodies gather, hierarchies loosen and alternative forms of social life continue to be rehearsed.

In dialogue with this work a new wall sculpture by Dada Khanyisa titled The House of Truth stages a collective scene suspended between different temporalities. The title refers to a shebeen, an underground and unlicensed tavern active during the prohibition era of the 1950s in Sophiatown, Johannesburg. Within the carved wooden relief, figures from different moments coexist: two men in suits and trilby hats evoke the gangsters who once ran illegal speakeasies, while other bodies, dressed more casually, belong to the present.

Caught in gestures of exchange and movement, the figures appear animated and closely gathered, foregrounding proximity and shared presence. By collapsing past and present into a single scene, Khanyisa approaches nightlife as something that exists outside linear time. The work draws a parallel between historical prohibition and more recent forms of restriction, including the Covid lockdowns, suggesting that even when gathering or socialising is forbidden, people will find ways to commune.

A small panel in the upper left corner functions as a narrow window, its reduced scale implying the insignificance of the outside world once inside a nightlife space. The natural grain of the wood evokes a sunrise or sunset, reinforcing the sense of temporal suspension. Through movement, gesture and closeness, The House of Truth frames nightlife as a space of continuity, resistance and collective life. Framed in this way, nightlife emerges as a space of continuity and resistance, a dimension that is also visible in the work of Jill Westwood.

A selection of polaroids, photographs and archival material by Jill Westwood extends this reflection through the lens of the London underground of the early nineteen eighties. Produced between 1981 and 1985, these works belong to a period in which Westwood developed a life as art approach, conceiving daily life itself as an artistic field. Immersed in music, fashion and nightclub subcultures while studying at the Royal College of Art, she shaped a practice in which performance, photography and art as fashion were closely intertwined.

One body of work consists of self portraits in which the artist wears latex garments conceived as second skins and portable artworks. Developed through an engagement with liquid latex that began during her studies in Sheffield and later intersected with London’s rubber fetish and industrial music scenes, these images explore female power, sexuality and the gaze through the body as both subject and site of experimentation.

Alongside this performative body of work, Westwood’s polaroids and photographs also document friends, collaborators and moments of collective life within underground social environments. Taken in clubs, private interiors and informal gatherings, these images register how identities, relationships and forms of togetherness were lived and shaped through proximity and shared experience. A Xeroxed document related to the Equinox Event held in London in 1983, a formative event for experimental music and performance scenes, situates Westwood’s practice within a broader ecology of collaboration and underground culture.

Across the presentation, celebration and collective gathering emerge as spaces where social relations are formed, tested and renegotiated.