The new White Cube exposition complex in the south London area of ​​5400 square meters. m. opens on the eve of Frieze Art Fair

Exhibition space
White Cube in Bermondsey, London
Source: guardian.co.uk

Although the new White Cube gallery is not finished yet, one thing is obvious: its size is just enormous. When the art dealer and owner Jay Jopling White Cube (Jay Jopling) October 12 will open its new branch in the London borough of Bermondsey, this exhibition complex area of ​​5400 square meters. will be the largest commercial art gallery in Britain, a kind of Tate Modern for the part of the art community, which focused on making a profit from art.

gallery-set White Cube Bermondsey («White Cube Bermondsey"), located a stone's throw from the Tate Modern and a skyscraper under construction Shard architect Renzo Piano, will be the third London Gallery Jopling, in addition to already existing in the West End and Hackney. One more plan to open a gallery in Hong Kong next year. So one of the tiny London-based gallery, which opened in 1993, has grown the whole empire, which today employs more than one hundred people.

gallery-new complex will be located in a former wholesale warehouse of the 1970s, once belonged to the magazine Radio Times. New exhibition spaces will give scope for exhibiting artists White Cube, which include Damien Hirst, Gilbert and George, Anselm Kiefer and Doris Salcedo. Gallery in London's West End has only 464 square meters. area, while places in Hackney almost twice as many - 903 square meters. And this is the first gallery Jopling took only 4 square meters.

complex in Bermondsey has several galleries of decent size with a museum in which, by design director for exhibitions by Tim Marlow (Tim Marlow), will take the basic projects. In addition, the complex includes Three small galleries, which will exhibit the work of young artists, which are not normally present in the White Cube, as well as building a cube with sides of 9 meters, referring to the name of the gallery ("White Cube »).

«should never rest on our laurels - says Tim Marlow. - the more interesting and varied exhibition space, we can provide, the stronger will be the artists wish to exhibit them." Marlow seemed ridiculous assumption that such an ambitious expansion may be untenable: "It is uniquely consistent. London - a city where artists want to exhibit, present yourself in a better light. London art market is comparable to New York. And we do not have to" scrape by susekam "authors for exhibitions. Even with the opening of new space to our artists still have to fight for something to get a large-scale solo exhibition at White Cube more than once in three years ».

The current expansion of White Cube looks quite intriguing within the context of vagaries of the gallery business (more about this here ). At the While many small galleries in London and abroad are deteriorating (among the defeated was, for example, Sorcha Dallas Glasgow), White Cube stands firmly on its feet. Marlow believes that the gallery top-class work on an international scale, and therefore they have more points of reference on the art market. And sometimes, when economic conditions become harder, better think about the expansion, because in times of survival of the fittest.

White Cube - not only the top gallery class, which has several offices in London. Gagosian Gallery has now two London art space in Kings Cross in London's West End. And at Sadie Coles, Haunch of Venison, Hauser and Wirth gallery, two in Mayfair. However, the White Cube in Bermondsey to the gallery entirely different level. There will be room for 60 seats for the showing of films and discussions of artists, an archive for researchers and a bookstore. Management will try to please not only the millionaires who came to work for Jake and Dinos Chapman, but ordinary visitors who have come just to see.

Over time, Marlow hopes to organize in the gallery education courses such as those that usually spend the state museums. "I hope that it will reduce the gap between public and private galleries, although so we always try to dialogue with government agencies. This blurring of boundaries has under itself and the material component: One of the ironies of the commercial art world is that the less obviously commercial gallery looks, the more it have credibility ».

Prepared by Mary Onuchina, AI

Sources : < noindex> artinvestment.ru