Frieze Art Fair kicks off in London next week. Invitations are jostling for space on collectors’ mantelpieces and champagne glasses are being polished in readiness for VIPs. Meanwhile, across town, paint is being touched up, spotlights positioned, and vinyl applied to windows as a fresh batch of galleries prepare to open – often in the ashes of their forebears – in time for the busiest week in London’s art calendar.
Here are the new London galleries to visit this week… and in the months to come.
Skarstedt Gallery
Thomas Croft Architects have created their third space for Per Skarstedt, following an earlier Mayfair site and the gallerist’s London home. Behind its stone façade, the new base offers three calm gallery spaces, the flow of their generous walls enhanced by radiused corners. Each gallery is connected by massive doorways that emphasise height while concealing the complex climactic controls necessary for a gallery with a stable that includes everyone from Cindy Sherman to Mike Kelley, John Baldessari to Richard Prince. A massive basement offers private viewing spaces and museum-style storage for the artworks.
Cindy Sherman and David Salle: History Portraits and Tapestry Paintings runs from 1 October to 26 November. Skarstedt London, 8 Bennet Street, London SW1A 1RP
Limoncello
Press coverage of Limoncello gallery used to focus on how tiny and impossible it was to find, despite its list of artists that includes Bedwyr Williams, the latest to fill the Barbican’s Curve gallery. Will moving just over a mile from Haggerston to Shoreditch be a step up in the world or just a step closer to town? Whichever, the gallery now occupies a unit on the Huntingdon Industrial Estate, also home to Kinman Gallery, and the once nomadic Emalin. The space immediately above the gallery was, by coincidence, formerly home to Limoncello Catering, whose signage remains in place.
Alice Browne: Forecast runs from 30 September to 5 November. Limoncello, Unit 5, Huntingdon Industrial Estate, Ebor Street, London E1 6JU
Cardi Gallery
This Milan gallery – specialising in Arte Povera, ZERO Group and American Minimalism – has been running since 1972. Opening a six-storey London site on the same strip as David Zwirner feels like a statement of intent. Inside the Mayfair townhouse, which was built in 1770, the ground and first floors retain original plasterwork and marble fireplaces, while the basement extends back into the space formerly occupied by a mews house to show large sculptural works under natural light. Upper levels include areas for works on a more domestic scale, offices, a library and even digs for visiting artists.
Arte Povera, American Minimalism, ZERO Group opens on 5 October. Cardi Gallery, 22 Grafton Street, London W1S 4EX
Almine Rech Gallery
The vast Gagosian building in Grosvenor Hill has a new neighbour. Almine Rech’s Brussels/Paris/London gallery empire has just staked out new territory, though given its debut show is of work by Jeff Koons – an artist also represented by Gagosian – one assumes that they’re proceeding on friendly terms. Work is taking place up to the wire, so ahead of the opening next Tuesday, all we know is that the 383 sqm gallery has been designed by Studio Abroad, and stretches over the ground and lower ground floor of the site.
Jeff Koons runs from 4 October to 21 January 2017. Almine Rech, Broadbent House, Grosvenor Hill, London W1K 3JH
The Gallery of Everything
Speaking of eminent neighbours: The Gallery of Everything’s new site is bang opposite the Chiltern Firehouse: 2014’s ‘it’ restaurant and still drawing crowds to this little corner of Marylebone. Housed inside what was once Mario’s Barbershop, the gallery is the commercial arm of non-profit organisation, The Museum of Everything. The barbershop’s red and white regalia neatly fits in with the museum’s graphic livery. A new stripy awning sets off the old sign, while inside, the wooden floor retains discoloured circles where the barber’s chairs were stationed. ‘Private’ works by non-academic artists – many of an upfront religious theme – decorate spaces on the ground and basement floors, while a documentary fronted by Jarvis Cocker plays in the former coal-hole.
Journey Into the Outside runs from 25 September to 20 November. The Gallery of Everything, 4 Chiltern Street, London W1U 7PS
Olivier Malingue
Olivier Malingue is the son of the venerable Parisian gallerist Daniel Malingue, and brother of Edouard, who has a gallery in Hong Kong. He is striking out alone with this first floor space on Bond Street, which was once home to Ayyam Gallery. Olivier hired the Brussels-based architect François Marcq – whose handiwork he had previous admired in a collector’s home – to bring balance to a long, low-ceilinged space. Marcq lined one side in dark wood and fossil-rich stone, and hid technical gubbins in the lighting track to gain a precious few centimetres in width. The space opens with a meditative show by octogenarian Korean artist Cho Yong-Ik. After that? It’s wait-and-see: this freshman gallerist is taking the Zen approach to programming his space.
Cho Yong-Ik runs from 5 October – 16 December. Olivier Malingue, First Floor, 143 New Bond Street, London W1S 2TP
Galerie Kamel Mennour
It’s not a bad address: 51 Brook Street is to all purposes actually IN Claridges Hotel, and this little arch-fronted storefront is the former home of the Assouline bookshop. As with the gallery’s space in Paris’ 8th Arrondissement, Kamel Mennour’s new London site has been designed by architect Pierre Yovanovitch. This gallery’s roster includes younger artists like Alicja Kwade and Latifa Echakhch – as well as big hitters such as Daniel Buren and Anish Kapoor – known for their room-sized installations and manipulation of perspective and architectural features. Fingers crossed, the stage is set for this small London outpost to become a constantly evolving, and surprising space.
Latifa Echakhch: Spring and Fall runs from 5 October to 12 November. Galerie Kamel Mennour, 51 Brook Street, London W1K 4HR
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