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MASSIMODECARLO, 16 Clifford St, London W1S 3RG
Massimo De Carlo’s background was in pharmacy and jazz when he founded his gallery in Milan in 1987. Since then, he has achieved considerable international reach: De Carlo represents 83 artists and estates and has galleries in Paris, Hong Kong, Seoul and Beijing as well as London and Milan. The gallery opened here in 2009: that was a modest toe in the London scene, hidden away on a second floor in Heddon Street under the name ‘Carlson’. Three years later, it moved to grander premises with three large floors in South Audley Street on the western edge of Mayfair, before switching to Clifford Street in 2022, almost on the recently reviving Cork Street. The first floor space in a Grade II Listed building contains original features from 1723 and spectacular chandeliers. There have been good shows in all three spaces: I recall Richard Artschwager in the first; Kaari Upson, Paola Pivi, Bertrand Lavier and Jenna Gribbon in the second; and Giorgio Griffa, Carla Accardi and Hannah Levy as excellent predecessors to the current show in the third.
You can catch Rotterdam-based Taiwanese artist Skyler Chen’s ‘How far I would have to go to become myself’ until 23rd August. His content-rich paintings narrate ‘the challenges inherent in self-discovery and acceptance’, and the accompanying catalogue is interestingly different: rather than attempting to interpret the paintings, Andrew Bliss imagines the internal dialogues of Chen’s queer characters.
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.
