Installation views of Penny Goring paintings at Arcadia Missa. ‘CAPS LOCK / DARKER MATTER / DEEPER LOTION/ TOXIC CIRCUS / DEATH TOLL’, to quote Goring’s own accompanying text
I had thought some of London’s galleries might close for good at the end of lockdown, but there’s no sign of any such trend. Rather, several have made good use of the last year’s hiatuses to relocate, typically to superior spaces.
For example:
Arcadia Missa: from a rather tucked-away first-floor abode in Soho to a bigger and better-lit street-level space near the Wallace Collection
Daiga Grantina’s ‘kweie’, 2020, at Emalin: a grid at rest, softened by its realisation in – as I expect you can tell – Latvian chicken feathers.
Emalin: just a few yards from the Huntingdon Industrial Estate opposite Shoreditch Overground to a large first floor room with lots of natural light.
Mimosa House: two impressively fitted-out storeys near Holborn replace their more central but less visible premises near Oxford Circus.
Annka Kultys to a superior unit within the same Business Centre near Cambridge Heath station.
The Maas Gallery: after 60 years just off Cork Street to Duke Street, near Christies.
Two with plans afoot are Pace – will be moving out of the Royal Academy and into the former Blain | Southern premises near Oxford Circus – and Lungley who, after a residency in Seventeen’s office on Kingsland Road, will open their own space in Soho in June.
Vivian Lynn – ‘Mind field: framework to integrate things seen across different fields I’, 2007 from an impressive first UK show of the late New Zealand artist (1931-2018) at Southard Reid
Others have relocated temporarily pending a permanent move: Charlie Smith: from over the Reliance pub in Shoreditch round the corner in Charlotte Road, Southard Reid from Royalty Mews just a few Soho yards for one show in Rodeo’s former space on Charing Cross Road, Alice Black from Soho to Covent Garden, with a plan to move back into Soho.
Art writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent sees a lot of shows: we asked him to jot down whatever came into his head
