Almine Rech, Grosvenor Hill, Broadbent House, London W1K 3JH
www.alminerech.com Instagram: @alminerech
After running spaces jointly for some years, Almine Rech founded her own gallery in Paris in 1997, the same year as she married into the Picasso family – she lives in Monaco with Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. Her gallery has expanded over the years to London, Brussels, New York, Shanghai, Gstaad, Monaco and Venice, as well as taking on extra galleries in Paris. That makes it one of the biggest galleries in terms of global reach. The London presence began modestly on Savile Row in 2014 before expanding into the current location of Grosvenor Hill, which opened spectacularly with Jeff Koons in 2016. A large upper space is complemented by a smaller area downstairs, still big enough for a substantial second show. From what I’ve seen of the programme – London and occasionally Brussels and Paris – it is very varied both in terms of content and in whether I personally will like it – some of the figurative painting in particular is some way from my taste. But a fair proportion of the London programme has been excellent in recent years. The highlights have been last year’s group show ‘Celebrating Picasso Today: Infinite Modernism’, pioneering veteran African artist Esther Mahlangu, Jenny Brosinski, Alice Anderson, Larry Poons and Peter Peri among contemporary artists; plus, on the Estate side, impressive surveys of Tom Wesselmann, Günther Förg and Ernst Wilhelm Nay. The present pairing – Youngju Joung above and Johan Cretten, including his dead fly, below – is probably the best two-show combination I’ve seen there. The gallery represents 84 artists, and it’s been particularly good to see that recent additions include Selma Parlour and Ali Helyer: two mid-career Britons I rate highly, but who previously lacked such high profile exposure.
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.
