Vigo, 7 – 8 Mason’s Yard, London SW1Y 6BU
www.vigogallery.com Instagram: @vigogallery
Vigo has been operating since 2011, originally on Old Bond Street close to – if not quite in – Vigo Street in Mayfair; then in Dering Street; as a pop-up during the Covid period; and now in Mason’s Yard, St James’s. The founder-director, Toby Clarke, also mounts substantial supplementary shows in the historic and characterful location of the Wellington Arch, the only art space from which I’ve had an aerial view of the changing of the guard! The programme mixes some 20th-century modern art – notably Bram Bogart – with a predominance of more contemporary work.
Clarke has long taken a particular interest in the African diaspora and African-American artists, such as Leonardo Drew, Hassan Haajaj and Derrick Adams. Others I recall him showing to advantage include Johnny Abrahams, Nika Neelova and Daniel Crews-Chubb. Yet I’d say that Vigo’s signature artist is the one on view now: the reputation and bankability of Ibrahim El-Salahi has increased steadily over the gallery’s existence, in no small part due to its support and advocacy through many on and off-site shows. Consistent with that, the gallery has a strong reputation for museum sales, and the titular work in the just-opened show ‘No Shade but His Shade’ has become the third El-Salahi work to be acquired from it by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. So it makes sense that Clarke himself made a cannily early purchase of the work with which he’s shown above – an account of the now-93-year-old Sudanese artist’s first day at school. Unsurprisingly, it isn’t for sale.
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.
