About New London Kicks

Having spent time on both the London and New York art scenes, NLK co-founders Simon Rumley and Ed Burke established New London Kicks in the Autumn of 2004 with the specific goal of injecting some of the energy of London's thriving contemporary art scene into New York. The idea was to offer some of London's most talented and new artists a premature chance to show their work in New York whilst simultaneously offering the doyens of the New York art establishment a chance to see the hottest undiscovered talent before anyone else in the world.

Having gathered together a formidable group of 8 young artists, Rumley and Burke trawled the streets of Chelsea with nothing but a hotbed of ideas and brochure full of the artist's work. Within a day of knocking on peoples' doors, the gallant folk at the Armory Show had been sufficiently impressed to offer New London Kicks a spot in their prestigious VIP events listing. It didn't take much longer for New York's leading private member's club, the Soho House, and the world's leading art magazine, Art Review, to come on board as sponsors and so the first New London Kick's show was born.

March 2005 saw the show take place for two days in one of Soho House's exclusive penthouse suites and culminate with an auction where over 50% of the work was sold. Over 300 of the world's leading art personnel including curators, gallery owners, collectors and museum directors saw the work during this time and as a direct result of the agreed quality, New London Kicks was offered two group shows at the world respected Wooster Projects Gallery in October and November.

As the NLK artists' reputations grow and the rest of the world catches up with their talent, you can say you saw them in New York first with NLK!

Simon Rumley & Ed Burke

Simon Rumley

Having been hanging out on London's younger contemporary art scene since the late 90s, Simon was suitably impressed to buy works from a handful of artists who would eventually join the NLK stable. When not working on NLK, Simon is a succesful writer/director of feature films, his fourth of which, The Living and The Dead, recently premiered in the 'Cinema of the Future' section at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. He has recently joined Foster Art's selection panel.

simonrumley.com

Ed Burke

Based in New York since the early 90s, English born and bred Ed manages the Lafayette St based Budman Studios, a centre which promotes new and emerging artists in New York, putting on shows and informally managing careers. Similar to Simon, Ed is also a videographer and as well as editing the NLK videos, he's worked work clients as varied as Hugo Boss, Siwy Denim and John Lurie.

beautifulfilms.com