Privately run by a staff of three, including founder Roger Burton and curator James Hollands, who all muck in (pardon the pun) selling tickets and sweeping the floor, the Hospital opened in 1992 with a retrospective of Vivienne Westwood's punk clothes, hanging from the ceiling.

Although at the time, they were chastised by the V&A for a 'disrespectful' surrounding, you still won't find the stale environment of the ICA; indeed you're more likely to find Anita Pallenberg turning the gallery into her living room to screen Super 8 films she made with Keith Richards.

Independence from public funding enables a pragmatic scheduling policy that is based purely on what they damn well feel like showing. This month they have Peter Beste's exhibition of iconoclastic photographs documenting the Norwegian Black Metal scene.

And no, I didn't know there was one either! But apparently it's alive and kicking, and so it seems are London's avant-gardists.

Peter Beste at The Horse Hospital
Colonnade, Bloomsbury, WC1
Opening reception Thursday April 22 at 7.30pm
Exhibition runs April 23–May 15, Mon–Sat 12-6pm

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