London Gallery Weekend 2023 more details released.-London Gallery Weekend has revealed new initiatives aimed at building a more expansive live programme and free events for visitors, increasing the international audience and creating new opportunities for artists.
The annual performance programme, developed in collaboration with UP Projects, is integral to LGW’s mission to offer an unparalleled opportunity for members of the public to freely experience site-specific performance artworks by some of the most exciting artists working today, expanding the visibility of London’s galleries and their artists. This year, the three selected artists for the performance programme are Nicole Bachmann, Li Hei Di, and Minh-Lan Tran. London Gallery Weekend and UP Projects are also working with Peckham Platform for the very first time, to deliver a community performance with residents in the borough of Southwark.
As a selection panel we were reflecting on what a public audience – including those that may not normally watch performance art – would appreciate and wish to see. How can the mix of artists work together and how can the themes that they explore offer interesting moments for reflection, learning & juxtaposition? We are really pleased with the final selection of Nicole Bachmann, Li Hei Di and Minh-Lan Tran and are very much looking forward to seeing them perform in June!
Bengi Ünsal, Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
The London Gallery Weekend curator bursary scheme has increased this year to support four international institutions, in addition to the partnership with Art Fund to bring 22 UK regional museums and galleries representatives to London to engage with the weekend’s programme of exhibitions, events and activities. Delivered in partnership with Art Fund, the initiative is designed to strengthen relationships between London’s galleries and colleagues at institutions from further afield. International curators from CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (France), Kunsthalle Mannheim (Germany), MAMbo -Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (Italy) and Wiels (Belgium) will visit, alongside curators from institutions around the UK, including Aberdeen Archives, The Hepworth Wakefield, Spike Island and Brighton CCA.
London Gallery Weekend returns for its third edition bringing together the city’s network of world-class galleries for a three-day programme of events and exhibitions. Collectively, the galleries have programmed more than 100 free events across the duration of the weekend, offering the public an exceptional opportunity to engage with art and artists in a variety of different ways. Curated routes from notable figures return in 2023, and for the first time will be offered as in-person tours, as well as online. All participating galleries will be open across the three days of the event, until 8pm on their respective focus days (Central London focus on Friday, South London focus on Saturday and East London focus on Sunday) and until 5pm on Sunday.
Performance Programme
London Gallery Weekend and UP Projects are pleased to announce that the three artists who have been selected for the 2023 performance programme are Nicole Bachmann, Li Hei Di and Minh-Lan Tran. Each artist’s performance will be staged in the three LGW locations: on Friday 2 June in Central London, on Saturday 3 June in South London and on Sunday 4 June in East London. Full lineup HERE
Swiss artist Nicole Bachmann will present not a centre, but a mesh, a spoken word performance written, produced, and performed by the artist. It explores orality as a tool to pass on knowledge and create meaning, where the voice is the main carrier of information.
London-based Chinese artist Li Hei Di will present The Willow Tree in which the artist will be joined by three other performers: Qingqing Liu, Erin Alles and Juicy Wang, all of whom wear custom-made funnels as hats. Liquid will be funnelled into the hats, causing it to squirt in different directions, mixing with the pigments embedded in the paper and creating a self-determining composition.
London-based French Vietnamese artist Minh-Lan Tran will present Heat Generation (prayer) in collaboration with choreographer Lena Hetzel. Considering the infliction and interiorisation of violence and its relationship with grace, the tension in the work manifests as an encounter between performers characterised as dancers and fighters.
Showcasing a mix of established and more emerging names within the world of performance art, the shortlisted artists were selected by a panel of industry experts from a list of nominations by galleries participating in London Gallery Weekend. The panel includes Zoé Whitley (Director, Chisenhale), Bengi Ünsal (Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts), Jo Baxendale (Senior Policy Officer Visual Arts and Public Realm, Greater London Authority), Rose Lejeune (Founding Director, Performance Exchange), Nephertiti Oboshie (Artistic Director, Peckham Platform), Emma Underhill (Founder & Artistic Director, UP Projects) and Moira Lascelles (Executive Director & Head of Partnerships, UP Projects).
This year London Gallery Weekend and UP Projects are also working closely with arts organisation, Peckham Platform who will develop a special performance working closely with Southwark-based communities. This performance will be showcased during the Saturday programme taking place on Peckham Library Square. This partnership marks a desire to build on the audience engagement achieved last year through Mandy El-Sayegh’s commission and to ensure that communities local to the three sites become more aware of this free public art offer
Both UP Projects and London Gallery Weekend wish for the performance programme to reach and be experienced by as broad a public audience as possible. Therefore, we are delighted to be working with Peckham Platform this year who have commissioned Lesley Asare to engage young people local to Peckham to create a community-generated performance that will be part of the programme on Saturday 3 June 2023. We will also be expanding the public talks programme to enable audiences to hear first-hand from the artists about the thought process behind their performance work, to make the programme as accessible as possible.
Moira Lascelles, Executive Director & Head of Partnerships, UP Projects
Events Programme
National and international visitors to London Gallery Weekend this year will discover the rich and diverse range of exhibitions that the city’s galleries have to offer, as well as receiving the chance to participate in a generous programme of events. The offering is composed of engaging educational talks and activity workshops for families, guided tours, joint gallery parties and special events, all of which are totally free and accessible to all.
Highlights from this year’s iteration include artist-led children’s workshops at Goodman Gallery with Pascale Desfontaines, and at TJ Boulting with Maisie Cousins. A sculptural performance set to the sound of calypso, soca and an audio narrative recorded by Lisa-Marie Harris will take place as part of her exhibition at Cooke Latham. An evening of performance with Musarc, one of the UK’s most progressive choral collectives, will happen at Lisson gallery. Artist-led tours will take place at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix by Anthony Ngoya; at Hannah Barry Gallery by George Rouy; and at VITRINE Bermondsey by Nika Kutateladze, who will also give a talk on the occasion of his exhibition with the gallery. At Michael Werner Gallery, Barbican Centre Curator Wells Fray-Smith will give a walkthrough tour of a suite of new paintings by Maki Na Kamura. Full list HERE
Further Exhibition Highlights
With more than 125 participating galleries, the 2023 edition of London Gallery Weekend will see mega-galleries come together with high calibre mid-size and emerging spaces, highlighting the vibrancy and variety of the London gallery scene. Highlights of the gallery shows open over the course of the weekend include newly conceived photographic works by Isaac Julien at Victoria Miro; a group show exploring traditional forms of making, featuring Ghada Amer, Kapwani Kiwanga and more at Goodman Gallery; an exhibition curated by preeminent French curator Alfred Pacquement featuring Lee Ufan and Claude Viallat at Pace gallery; paintings by George Rouy at Hannah Barry, accompanied by a new publication with Tarmac Press and new works by Gary Simmons using his seminal erasure technique at Hauser & Wirth London. Several galleries are showing two-part exhibitions across multiple spaces, including a group
show exploring contemporary abstraction at Gagosian’s Davies St and Grosvenor Hill spaces; a group show examining materiality, and including Richard Long and Otobong Nkanga, across both of Lisson gallery’s locations; a new series of work by Jacqueline Humphries at both Modern Art Bury St and Modern Art Helmet Row; and a presentation of new paintings and drawings by Sabine Moritz across both of Pilar Corrias’ galleries.
London is home to a flourishing scene of emerging galleries and there are some exceptional exhibitions on view, including a series of new paintings by Kate Spencer Stewart at Emalin; new works, including aluminium keyholes framed in alpaca wool, by Amanda Moström at Rose Easton, group show JUPITER WALK featuring Lulu Bennett and Steph Huang at Sherbet Green; a group show at South Parade featuring Georgina Hill, Stephen Polatch and Melanie Smith amongst others; and a solo show by Irish sculptor Niamh O’Malley at Vardaxoglou gallery.
London Gallery Weekend June 2nd – June 4th 2023, Londongalleryweekend.art
