London’s gallery scene just can’t be killed. Pandemics, economic downturns, Brexit, shifts in fashion, insane rent hikes: none of it has stopped the number of galleries in this city from growing and growing. And that, obviously, is a very good thing for art lovers, because it’s in the smaller, newer spaces that the younger, weirder artists get to flourish. If you want to take the pulse of art in this city, these are the galleries to jab your fingers into, and you’ll find that the blood is very much still pumping.
Ignore all the signs and symbols that say this is a sandwich shop: it’s not, it’s an art gallery, just with sandwich shop signage. Ginny on Frederick is a tiny space opposite Smithfield Market, its white tiled interior a clue to its past as a catering establishment, but the only thing it dishes up these days is clever, conceptual exhibitions by some of the most exciting early-career artists working today.
More information here.
For a while there it looked like all the east London galleries were either dying or moving to Mayfair – Vyner Street is still a withered ghost of its former self – but a new crop of art spaces is keeping Bethnal Green’s art heart beating. Prime among them is Rose Easton, whose recent show of gory, erotic, inflatable art by Jenkin van Zyl was one of the best, and creepiest, exhibitions of the end of 2022.
More details here.
Guts started up just before the pandemic, pushing some of the best young artists around, all while avoiding having a permanent space, instead acting as an itinerant, moveable feast of contemporary art. But it’s settled down now, opening its first permanent gallery space right near Hackney Downs station in January 2022, and established itself with a programme featuring Time Out faves Olivia Sterling and Corbin Shaw alongside tons of other great young artists.
More details here.
This is a gallery with a concept: while the main exhibition is on, you can pop into the back room and see a work from its next show, so you always know what’s… in the pipeline. Get it? So all through December 2022, you could see Emmanuel Awuni’s head-spinning abstraction, and then pop into the back to see a work from Gabriel Kidd’s upcoming show of mythological, weird, intense drawings of ogres. A neat concept in a city where it’s too easy to just do the same as everyone else.
More details here.
Castor isn’t new, it’s been plugging away down in Deptford for ages, but it is newly central, having upped sticks from south-east London and moved into the heart of Fitzrovia in autumn 2022. Deptford’s loss is everyone else’s gain, though, because Castor’s new location makes its programme of exhibitions – filled with awesome younger artists like Tom Worsfold, Jane Hayes Greenwood and Rafal Zajko – infinitely more accessible.
More details here.
Art is still flourishing down in Deptford, where cheaper spaces mean more freedom to do weirder, more experimental stuff. XXijra Hii – pronounced shy-rah-hi, apparently – was founded in 2020 in suitably industrial surroundings, and has put on that weird, experimental art with total abandon. Most recently, it showed excellent pasta-themed work by Glen Pudvine, one of the best young painters in the UK.
More details here.
Run by Frieze, the people behind the art fair, No.9 Cork Street isn’t a normal gallery. Instead, it offers up this lush Mayfair space to other galleries from around the world, giving them a chance to come and peddle their wares in central London, acting as a platform for international galleries instead of just pushing its own agenda. That means you get to see galleries like Seoul’s Barakat Contemporary and LA’s Various Small Fires, all without having to leave the comforts of the Piccadilly Line and Pret.
More details here.
Probably the newest gallery on the list, Gathering opened in Mayfair in October to coincide with Frieze art fair, and did so with a bang: crashing into London art life with a show of surreal, psychedelic, pink-lit installation art by Turner Prize winner Tai Shani. It feels like the closest to a high-end, blue-chip gallery a brand new space can get, so it’s set a high early bar that it will be interesting to see if it can keep reaching.
More information here.
This tiny Soho gallery space can be found upstairs on the corner of Old Compton Street. But this isn’t some old-school pleasure house, unless your kink is contemporary art with a focus on high-end audio installations. This new gallery is wired to the gills with fancy speakers, so it can host cutting-edge sound work alongside visual art, like when it showed the brain-melting psychedelic work of Eddie Ruscha (yes, son of Ed) earlier in 2022.
More information here.
Discover Time Out original video
