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FAD Magazine covers contemporary art – News, Exhibitions and Interviews reported on from London

What’s Right With Art: Fitzrovia is on the up

Tabish Khan the @LondonArtCritic loves art and visits hundreds of exhibitions a year. Every now and then he comes across something in the art world that either does or doesn’t meet his approval.

When I started writing about art around ten years ago there was a lot going on in Fitzrovia – the area north east of Oxford Circus, with plenty of buzz and a slew of galleries on Eastcastle Street. Then slowly they started to close down one by one with the likes of Scream and Caroll / Fletcher shutting their doors. While Pilar Corrias remained on that street and further into Fitzrovia TJ Boulting, Gallery Rosenfeld, Alison Jacques and Fold Gallery continued with their strong programmes, it did feel like Fitzrovia was no longer gallery central.

On attending the very busy opening of Castor and Indigo + Madder‘s new space on Whitfield street, it struck me that Fitzrovia is the place to be once more with these two galleries relocating here from Deptford and Brooke Benington announcing that they will also be opening a new space in the area.

Recently Alice Black has moved northwards from Soho, Workplace from Mayfair and Vitrine has moved back to having a London gallery space – alongside the window space in Bermondsey. While existing galleries have expanded with Josh Lilley extending into the next door space and Edel Assanti moving into a beautiful new space – Pontone / Albemarle gallery taking over its old spot on Newman Street.

Given that during the pandemic there was a lot of talk about how we may end up losing a lot of galleries for good – particularly in the mid-market, it’s great to see a resurgence in these types of galleries in the centre of town. Long may it continue.

For more in this series, see my thoughts on outdoor artinappropriate selfiesit’s air conditionedwhy everyone is wrong about NFTspoor press releasesexperience as artcommercial as a dirty wordnew galleries opening in Londonvideo art at homethe Hockney roundel, art finds a wayart being freeOnline exhibitionsTurner Prize 2019artist’s request for feedbackthe reaction to the shredded Banksy#FriezeWeek, Blockchain hypeFinding artPrivate viewsArt itselfAppointment only exhibitionsArtificial Intelligence replacing artistsEveryone’s a CriticPhoto LondonThe Turner Prize, Art for art’s sakeConceptual art is complicatedCondoHow performance art is presented in museumsFrieze week floozies, too much respect for an artist’s legacyopinions not being welcomean exhibition across three countriestackling race and gender in artartist-curatorsart fair hypetop 5s and top 10sour political art is terriblegap left by Brian Sewellhow art never learned from the Simpsonswhy artspeak won’t dieso-called reviewsbad reviews are bad for business, the $179m dollar headlineart fairs appealing to the massesfalse opening hourssize matters and what’s wrong with video art.

Photo: Installation view of Castor’s inaugural show.

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