Edel Assanti, 1B Little Titchfield Street, London W1W 7BU
edelassanti.com Instagram: @edelassanti
Edel Assanti was founded in 2010 by Jeremy Epstein and Charlie Fellowes. They were still working at Gagosian and Hamiltons galleries respectively, which led them to use a name less obviously associated with themselves: who would know that ‘Edel’ is Epstein’s grandmother’s maiden name and ‘Assanti’ is the surname of a sculptor who eloped with Fellowes’s great-grandmother? The early shows were in a rather vertiginous setting across three floors in Victoria, above which was Gordon Cheung’s studio for a period – and he has remained with the gallery as it moved into Newman Street in Fitzrovia in 2014, then to its current space nearby in 2022.
Cheung’s recurring use of the Financial Times is one indication that his work address political and social-economic issues, and that’s become typical of the gallery’s artists as a whole: take Marcin Dudek, Noémie Goudal, Dale Lewis and Vinca Petersen, to name established favourites of mine; or last year’s high-profile debut show of Jenkin van Zyl, who also has a smaller presentation currently – including an entertaining set of apartment buzzers such as that above. I wouldn’t say the content is a rule, though: the excellent sculptors Jodie Carey and Oren Pinhasi – who has the current main space show – fit that template less readily. It was, incidentally, Edel Assanti that founded London Gallery Weekend, an annual celebration bringing together 140 contemporary London galleries, the third iteration of which will take place 31 May – 2 June.
London’s gallery scene is varied, from small artist-run spaces to major institutions and everything in between. Each week, art writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent gives a personal view of a space worth visiting.
