Cork Street through time, a history of innovation and scandal. The street that in-troduced major artists and avant garde movements to the UK.
1925
The Mayor Gallery opens at 18 Cork Street
The Mayor Gallery, owned by Freddie Mayor, is the first gallery to open on Cork Street, showing the work of the English and French painters.
In 1925 the gallery displayed works by Ivon Hitchens, Margeret Fisher Prout, Claude Flight and Paul Nash.
One of the first galleries to exhibit Surrealist art, it later contributes to the arrival of Ab-stract Expressionism and American Pop Art.
1933
The Mayor Gallery presents an exhibition by Max Ernst
1933
The Mayor Gallery first exhibits the work of Francis Bacon in a group exhibition
Bacon’s ‘Crucifixion’ (1933) appeared in a survey of contemporary art, arranged in con-nection with Herbert Read’s book ‘Art Now’.
1934
Unit One exhibition at The Mayor Gallery
Unit One is a group of modern artists set up by Paul Nash and includes architects, paint-ers and sculptors.
They held one exhibition at Mayor Gallery in 1933 that subsequently toured for the next two years, closing in Belfast in 1935.
Unit One is credited for establishing London as central to modernist and abstract art and architecture in the 1930s.
Unit One consisted of John Armstrong, John Bigge, Edward Burra, Frances Hodgkins, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Wells Coates and Colin Lucas.
1936
The London Gallery opens at number 28
E.L.T. Mesens, the Belgian Surrealist and friend of Magritte, opens The London Gallery assisted by Roland Penrose, who later became a Founding Director of the ICA in Lon-don.
The gallery would later become the UK’s central hub for Surrealism, giving exhibitions to Max Ernst, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters and Yves Tanguy.
In November 1937, The London Gallery caused a scandal when they opened an exhibi-tion at midnight, serving guests sausages and whisky.
In 1939, the gallery shows work by Mondrian and Kokoshka.
1936
The International Surrealist Exhibition opens on 11th June
The exhibition brings Surrealism to the UK for the first time.
The exhibition was held at No 5 Burlington Gardens, organised by Paul Nash, Henry Moore, Roland Penrose, Rupert Lee, Diana Brinton Lee, Hugh Sykes Davis, David Gas-coyne, Humphrey Jennings and McKnight Kauffer. Around 390 works and objects were displayed in the exhibition.
On the opening night, Sheila Legge stood in the middle of Trafalgar Square clothed in a wedding dress inspired by a Salvador Dalí artwork, her head obscured by a flower ar-rangement.
Although chastised by critics, the exhibition proves unexpectedly popular with the British public – over 2000 people attend the private view with around 1000 visitors following that.
At the private view, Dylan Thomas served cups of tea to guests. And Dalí delivered a lec-ture wearing a Diving Bell, almost suffocating and having to be rescued by the young po-et David Gascoyne.
1936
The Redfern Gallery, founded by Arthur Knyvett-Lee and Anthony Maxtone Gra-ham, relocates from 27 Bond Street to 20 Cork Street
Peggy Guggenheim opens her gallery Guggenheim Jeune at 30 Cork Street, above a pawn shop
The gallery’s opening exhibition was Jean Cocteau, curated by Marcel Duchamp, who acted as Guggenheim’s artistic advisor.
The works depicted pubic hair and were detained at Croydon Airport. Duchamp and Guggenheim had to convince customs to release the art, on the understanding that it was to be shown in a back room.
Kandinsky and Tanguy had their first UK exhibitions at Guggenheim Jeune.
1939
The outbreak of World War II
London’s commercial galleries all closed abruptly when the Second World War broke out.
Many of them, including The Mayor Gallery and The Redfern Gallery, reopened on Cork Street in the post-war years.
1945
Gallery Roland, Browse and Delbanco opens at 19 Cork Street
1955
The Piccadilly Gallery opens at 5a Cork Street
Founded in 1953 by husband and wife Godfrey and Eve Pilkington, in 1956 they were joined by Christabel Briggs who later became a partner.
The gallery cemented its reputation in the 1960s, championing Art Nouveau and 19th and 20th Century Symbolism.
In the 1970s, the Piccadilly Gallery held groundbreaking exhibitions of the Viennese Se-cessionists and German New Realists.
The gallery moved next door to 16 Cork Street in 1978.
1957
Victor Waddington opens his gallery on Cork Street
Exhibiting mainly Irish artists such as Jack Butler Yeats, he also showed small paintings and works on paper by artists including Matisse, Soutine, Rouault and Picasso.
Thanks to the influence of Leslie Waddington, Victor’s son, the gallery exhibited Ameri-can Colour Field artists, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.
Anthony Caro, John Hoyland and Patrick Caulfield all debuted at Waddington Gallery.
1966
Leslie Waddington opens his own gallery at 11-12 Cork Street
The legendary London dealer Leslie Waddington is often credited with transforming the contemporary art market, raising the profile of British artists internationally and global art-ists in London.
Leslie Waddington brought artists including Georg Baselitz, Jean Dubuffet, Francis Pica-bia and Barry Flanagan to the forefront and was the champion of rising stars such as Fio-na Rae, Ian Davenport and Lisa Milroy.
1973
James Mayor, son of Freddie, takes over as Director of The Mayor Gallery.
He is responsible for instigating key solo exhibitions in London for American artists in-cluding Eva Hesse, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Robert Ryman, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann.
1977
Browse & Darby opens at 19 Cork Street
Roland, Browse and Delbanco’s lease at 19 Cork Street fell through and their partner-ship dissolved.
William Darby and Lillian Browse then set up a gallery together at the same address.
Although Lillian Browse retired in 1981, the gallery remains open today.
1982
Stoppenbach & Delestre Ltd establish their gallery at 25 Cork Street
Robert Stoppenbach and François Delestre’s gallery specialises in leading French artists spanning the 19th and early 20th centuries.
1983
Robert Fraser (‘Groovy Bob’) arrives on Cork Street
Having spent time in New York and London, Robert ‘Groovy Bob’ Fraser was an influen-tial art dealer who was also a central figure on London’s social scene.
His previous gallery on Duke Street was very influential but in this second space he pro-moted the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.
1985
Victoria Miro takes over from Robert Fraser
Victoria Miro opens her gallery and exhibits emerging and contemporary artists including Ian Hamilton Findlay, Marina Abramović, and Richard Tuttle.
After 15 years on Cork Street, Victoria Miro Gallery moves to London’s East End.
1985
Grey Organisation attacks Cork Street
The radical art organisation stages an “art terrorist action,” vandalising some of the gal-leries on Cork Street with buckets of grey paint.
Grey Organisation members include Toby Mott, Daniel Saccoccio, Tim Burke and Paul Spencer.
1993
Messum’s move into 28 Cork Street
Founded by David Messum in 1963, the gallery relocates to Cork Street in 1993.
Messum’s pioneered British Impressionism as well as the Newlyn and St Ives Schools.
1994
Beaux Arts Gallery opens
The gallery exhibits Modern British and Contemporary painters and sculptors in its Cork Street location.
1995
David Bowie holds an exhibition of his work titled ‘Afro / Pagan’ at The Gallery, 28 Cork Street
Sketches of Iggy Pop were displayed alongside miniature silver sculptures of Bowie’s wife Iman.
The works were priced from £350 and the Saatchi Gallery purchased pieces from the ex-hibition.
1995
Alan Cristea opens his gallery at number 31 Cork Street
Previously a Director at Waddington Gallery, Alan Cristea buys Waddington Graphics and launches his gallery on Cork Street.
In 2007 the gallery expands, encompassing 34 Cork Street.
2000
Flowers Gallery opens at 21 Cork Street
Flowers Gallery was established in 1970 and exhibits contemporary painting, sculpture, photography and prints.
2004
Bernard Jacobson Gallery moves into 6 Cork Street
The gallery has held major exhibitions of international artists including Robert Mother-well, Pierre Soulages, Ben Nicholson, Kurt Schwitters and Sam Francis.
2006
Waddington Gallery hosts the first exhibition of work by Fausto Melotti in the UK
Fausto Melotti was a lifelong friend of Lucio Fontana but was lesser known international-ly. The exhibition helped put him on the map.
2009
Howard Hodgkin exhibits two 20ft long paintings he created at Alan Cristea Gallery
Two monumental works by Sir Howard Hodgkin titled ‘As Time Goes By’ were amongst Hodgkin’s most ambitious and complex paintings.
2011
Waddington Galleries becomes Waddington Custot
Leslie Waddington forms a partnership with French art dealer Stephane Custot.
2016
Cork Street’s redevelopment commences, creating the most prestigious, dedicat-ed street for art in the world
The Pollen Estate spearheads a major initiative aimed at restoring Cork Street’s innova-tive reputation, doubling the existing gallery space.
2016
House of Voltaire first pops-up at Cork Street
House of Voltaire is Clapham not-for-profit gallery Studio Voltaire’s art and design store, drawing inspiration from influential artist’s shops including Keith Haring’s Pop Shop and the Bloomsbury Group’s Omega Workshop.
It offers a new way for audiences to engage with art while benefitting the gallery’s exhibi-tion and education programmes, directed by the inimitable Joe Scotland.
Further Voltaire happenings take place in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
2018
Artists for Artangel at Cork Street
Cork Street hosts a fundraising exhibition for Artangel, featuring works by Jeremy Deller, Taryn Simon, Wolfgang Tillmans, Roni Horn, Christian Marclay, Susan Hiller and many more.
Artangel enables works with a sense of magic and otherworldliness about them, in unex-pected places. It has helped artists realise more than 125 exceptional projects since 1991.
Rachel Whiteread’s Turner Prize winning House (1993-4), Break Down by Michael Landy (2001) and Roger Hiorns’ Seizure (2008) have all been made possible through the organisation – the latter using 90,000 litres of copper sulphate liquid to crystallise a south London council flat.
2019
Condo at 22-24 Cork Street
The international collaborative exhibition is welcomed for the first time.
An exchange between nine galleries takes place: Koppe Astner, Project Native Inform-ant, Mother’s Tankstation and Dan Gunn host Berlin’s Sandy Brown, Société and Kow, Galerie Max Mayer (Düsseldorf) and Commonwealth & Council (Los Angeles).
Established by Vanessa Carlos (Carlos/Ishikawa) in London, 2016, Condo has run sev-eral acclaimed cycles.
A total of 52 shows happen at 18 galleries overall, from Corvi-Mora and Herald St to Maureen Paley, Pilar Corrias and Sadie Coles HQ.
2019
Block Universe: Sophie Jung at Cork Street
Sophie Jung presents a major performance and installation as part of the year’s Block Universe festival.
Founded by Louise O’Kelly in 2015, Block Universe is an annual platform for fostering and encouraging work in the live medium, run by an all-female team.
Cork Street acts as a festival hub while premieres, talks, screenings and workshops hap-pen all over the city.
2019
Wong Ping: ‘Heart Digger’ at 5-6 Cork Street
Coinciding with his show at Camden Arts Centre, his first solo presentation at a UK insti-tution, Wong Ping presents new inflatable sculptures and video installations at Cork Street.
A self-taught animator, Ping began making clips in his spare time while working as a digi-tal editor for a TV studio in Hong Kong. Releasing content directly through YouTube and Vimeo, his work attracted a cult online following.
Ping was the inaugural recipient of the Camden Arts Centre Emerging Artist Prize at Frie-ze 2018.
2019
Goodman Gallery opens at 26 Cork Street
Post re-activation, Goodman Gallery is the first new permanent gallery to arrive in Cork Street.
A pre-eminent gallery on the African continent, Goodman Gallery was pivotal in shaping contemporary South African art from the time of apartheid.
Its artists include Candice Breitz, Alfredo Jaar, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat and Da-vid Goldblatt. Goodman has brought a new generation of contemporary names to Lon-don, such as Haroon Gunn-Salie, Kapwani Kiwanga, Tabita Rezaire and Mikhael Su-botzky.
Liza Essers is Goodman’s owner/Director since 2008. She has brought over 30 interna-tional artists to the Goodman roster, of which 50% are women. The London space com-plements its two existing galleries in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa.
2020
Art in the pandemic
The art world reacts as Covid-19 shuts everything down.
Nnena Kalu’s exhibition (as part of Studio Voltaire Elsewhere) stops abruptly in March. Her installation at 30 Burlington Street, worked on daily over the course of the show, be-comes frozen in time.
In May, as the UK continues to quarantine, The Mayor, Flowers, Waddington Custot and Goodman galleries launch online exhibitions.
2020
Frieze Week in the pandemic
International travel is impacted as lockdowns globally attempt to curb the pandemic. Frieze London shifts from sprawling Regent’s Park structure to an online viewing room.
Cork Street Galleries becomes the epicentre of cultural activity during London’s busiest art market month with a programme of physical take overs.
Lisson Gallery arrives at 22 Cork Street for a six month residency. The exhibition Horizon features work by Ai Weiwei, John Akomfrah, Anish Kapoor, Mary Corse, Haroon Mirza, Hugh Hayden, Lee Ufan, Stanley Whitney, Laure Prouvost, Ryan Gander, Allora & Calzadilla and Joanna Pousette-Dart.
Stephen Friedman Gallery, neighbouring residents on Old Burlington Street, takes over 30 Cork Street to present solo exhibitions by Holly Hendry and Denzil Forrester in a specially-designed space.
Sadie Coles HQ takes over 24 Cork Street with the first UK presentation of Ugly Plymouths, an immersive video installation by the moment’s most sought-after rising artist, Martine Syms.
Frieze presents The Institute of Melodic Healing (IMH), an “institute of sound and performance” located at 9 Cork Street and broadcasting online. Curated by Victor Wang, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of M WOODS Museum, Beijing, the programme lasts for 111 hours, rethinking the parameters of live art during a time when distance, the body, and movement are regulated in post-Covid Britain. Participating artists are Haroon Mirza, Denzil Forrester, Mandy El-Sayegh, Alvaro Barrington, Anthea Hamilton, Zadie Xa and Benito Mayor Vallejo and Cécile B. Evans.
2020
Hans Ulrich Obrist guest edits CATALOGUE
Cork Street Galleries launches a special edition of its magazine guest edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director, addressing this unprecedented time. Titled CATALOGUE 4.5, the magazine platforms 39 international new generation artists by publishing their unrealised projects in a freely circulated exhibition space. “I hope that many of these projects can soon be realised,” Obrist comments of the group show in print.
2021
Frieze launches permanent space at 9 Cork Street
Frieze presents No.9 Cork Street, its first permanent exhibition space globally, launched during the fair’s return. Designed by architecture studio Matheson Whiteley and developed in partnership with The Pollen Estate, two converted townhouses – 600 square metres across three floors – provide a flexible and collaborative year-round environment for the world’s leading galleries to connect with London audiences. It underscores a crucial commitment to London’s creative spirit.
2021
Daniel Birnbaum guest edits CATALOGUE
Daniel Birnbaum, Artistic Director of Acute Art and previously Director of Moderna Museet, guest edits CATALOGUE 5.0, the latest Cork Street Galleries magazine. Dubbed The Electronic Hydra, it considers AR, VR and Mixed Reality. The publication is devoted to the impact of new visual technologies on art and its institutions.
Works by Julie Curtiss, Koo Jeong A, Precious Okoyomon and Tomás Saraceno are generated by QR codes throughout the magazine, appearing on the reader’s smartphone in their immediate surroundings. They are also located site-specifically as Electronic Hydra Prelude, the first-ever AR exhibition on Cork Street during Frieze London 2021. Boundaries are blurred between the real and virtual, with the show being invisible to the naked eye.
2021
Gina Fischli’s banners create history
Gina Fischli becomes the first artist in history to exhibit banners across Cork Street. Titled Ravenous and Predatory, a series of animal portraits are collected via online screengrabs and through open-source platforms. Having featured in Hans Ulrich Obrist’s edition of CATALOGUE, the unrealised project is finally realised.
2021
Lisson Gallery completes its residency
The success of Lisson Gallery’s residency sees the gallery spend a year on Cork Street – double the sixth months originally planned. Throughout this time, exhibitions by Cory Arcangel, Jonathan Monk, and Shirazeh Houshiary are staged. Arcangel’s installation Totally Fucked, an infinite loop of Super Mario stuck on a block in a sea of blue pixels, resonates with the pandemic climate. While the programme culminates in Marina Abramović’s Seven Deaths, devoted to Maria Callas, simultaneously in Mayfair and at Lisson Street. Cork Street displays seven ethereal portraits in alabaster, which, up close, become abstract geology.
2021
Marina Abramović’s Seven Deaths at Lisson Gallery
Showing across their two central London spaces at Lisson Street and Cork Street, and in anticipation of her pandemic-postponed retrospective at the Royal Academy, both exhibitions are based on the theme of Abramović’s ambitious opera 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, which travels from its 2020 premiere at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich to the Opéra National de Paris and the Greek National Opera. The seven alabaster sculptures that Abramović exhibits at Cork Street are lethal vignettes which are also self-portraits of the artist inhabiting different personae – herself, Callas, the jilted bride or the sacrificial paramour, among others – each facing their own emotional, operatic endings.
2021
Talk Art focuses on Cork Street
The successful podcast, which has featured everyone from Laurie Anderson to John Stezaker, Alvaro Barrington to Dame Phyllida Barlow RA, devotes an episode to Cork Street. Hosts Robert Diament and Russell Tovey are joined by art critic and contributing editor of The Art Newspaper, Louisa Buck. As a friend of – and a lively authority on – Cork Street, Buck takes listeners on a figurative excursion around what is recognised as the genesis of the global art world and as an incubator of eminent artists and modern and contemporary art movements. Featuring the Surrealists, Peggy Guggenheim, Max Ernst, Claude Cahun, Sheila Legge, Dali’s Lobster telephone, Méret Oppenheim’s fur tea cup, and the joy of “weird stuff” – namely the Electronic Hydra Prelude AR exhibition, curated by Daniel Birnbaum.
2022
The Grey Organisation: Cork Street Attack at The Mayor Gallery
On 21st May 1985, the Grey Organisation staged an attack on the galleries at Cork Street. Almost 37 years later, the action is fêted in an exhibition at the The Mayor Gallery – one of the galleries they attacked. The artistic anti-establishment protest, actioned during night-time, saw cans of grey paint hurled over the street’s sizeable plate glass windows. Consequentially, the group, comprising painter Toby Mott (its co-founder and spokesperson), Daniel Saccoccio (nee Clegg), Paul Spencer and the late Tim Burke, received a banning order from Central London. Their grey suits worn with a white shirt, fastened at the collar, marked a sombre dress code, chosen for a lack of allegiance to any institution or group. Embracing anonymity, they would reject the hero artist identity.
2022
Billy Apple®: Rainbows 1965 at The Mayor Gallery
Following Cork Street Attack, the Grey Organisation’s exhibition the invited side of the glass, The Mayor Gallery restages an important 1965 show credited with being one of the first to treat electric light as a new sculptural medium. Harbouring a fascination for the science of colour and light, as well as being drawn to new products and advancing technologies, Billy Apple (b. 1935 – d. 2021, Auckland, New Zealand) presented seven neon sculptures based on the graphic rainbow shape (and colours) strategically across the floor at New York’s Bianchini Gallery, recreating the hues of the visible spectrum with a precision that together made up white light. Working with the artist’s wife, Mary Apple, to prepare the surviving works still in the artist’s possession, The Mayor Gallery presents four original neon sculptures, a rare semi-circular Rainbow print, and three Plexiglas objects. It is the first time Apple’s Rainbows have been presented together since their 1965 showing.
2022
Peter Blake: Under Milk Wood, a play by Dylan Thomas at Waddington Custot
Peter Blake’s opus arrives at Cork Street in a dedicated space. The series of over 170 watercolours, collages and drawings illustrates the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ landmark 1953 play for voices. Unveiled at the National Museum of Wales in 2013 to mark the centenary of Thomas’ birth, this special Mayfair exhibition, presented by Waddington Custot, coincides with Blake’s 90th birthday and marks the project’s first viewing outside Cymru, debuting a number of new additions as the artist has continued working on the series.
While a young student at the Royal College of Art, Blake heard the 1954 BBC radio recording of Under Milk Wood, featuring Richard Burton. A quarter of a century later, in 1979, the idea of creating a visual identity developed, after being given a copy of the recording to listen to while working in his studio. Abandoned and returned to multiple times – such is the scale of the project – it was embarked on in earnest in the 1990s. The exhibition’s dedicated, temporary space at no. 22 is Waddington Custot’s third site on the street, and continues an historic pattern. First opening as Waddington Galleries at 2 Cork Street in 1958, by the end of the 80s it occupied as many as five different premises on Cork Street.
2022
Sonia Boyce OBE RA Cork Street Banners Commission 2022
Cork Street Galleries, in partnership with the British Council, announces Sonia Boyce OBE RA as the artist for its 2022 banners commission. The work, installed outdoors, overhead and across the street marks a new public art destination in the capital, above the spiritual home of home of modern and contemporary art. Work from Feeling Her Way, Boyce’s critically acclaimed British Council commission for the British Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, is unveiled on Cork Street on Thursday 13 October.
A recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion award for best national participation at the biennale, Feeling Her Way is an immersive installation that centres around the vocal experimentation of five outstanding black female musicians. A central theme in Boyce’s practice, the improvisation, interaction, and playfulness that the musicians display in each others’ presence demonstrates the potential of collaborative play as a route to innovation. Embodying feelings of freedom, power, and vulnerability that are so present in Boyce’s exhibition in Venice, larger than life portraits of Tanita (2021) and Poppy (2021), two of the five vocalists brought together by the artist, take centre stage on Cork Street.
The British Council is pleased to share Cultureshock’s specially commissioned video walkthrough of Boyce’s Venice exhibition via QR codes placed throughout Cork Street.
2023
Cork Street announces Alison Jacques, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Tiwani Contemporary
Cork Street announces three galleries to open permanently in autumn 2023: Alison Jacques, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Tiwani Contemporary.
Alison Jacques will expand her business’ presence in London with a new 6000-sq-ft location at 22 Cork Street – next door to no. 21, the former home of ground-breaking gallerist Robert Fraser aka ‘Groovy Bob’, and opposite Waddington, where, in 1993, Jacques would sit at the reception desk and dream one day of her own gallery on Cork Street. The new space will open following a significant renovation by architect Mike Rundell, transforming what was a concrete shell into a three-floor gallery HQ comprising four exhibition spaces, private viewing rooms, ample offices and on-site storage.
After 27 years at its home on neighbouring Old Burlington Street, Stephen Friedman Gallery, will expand and relocate to 5-6 Cork Street. The new location, designed by award-winning London architectural firm David Kohn Architects, will support the gallery’s ambitious plans for growth. Key developments in the building will include large bespoke galleries and a new mezzanine level. Externally, a landscaped courtyard garden will create a new space for the presentation of outdoor sculpture. Other features include a variety of offices, purpose-built flexible areas for working, a library, private viewing rooms and spaces for visitors to dwell and congregate, including a specially designed kiosk.
Tiwani Contemporary moves to a new gallery space at 24 Cork Street. This move, alongside establishing and opening a Lagos gallery space in 2022, represents a significant milestone for Tiwani and foregrounds the gallery’s plans for the next ten years and beyond. Designed by MATHESON WHITELEY architectural studio (London), with interiors and furnishings by designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello (Lagos), the gallery will be located on the ground floor corner of Burlington Gate, a recently completed mixed-use building by renowned architect Richard Rogers.
2023
The Redfern Gallery announces its centenary exhibition
On the significant achievement of its centenary, The Redfern Gallery brings together an exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture spanning the period, while highlighting how the gallery has continued to set trends, launch the careers of major artists, and organise landmark exhibitions since 1923. Within its first year of operating, The Redfern was the first gallery to exhibit the carvings of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Many young British painters, along with Patrick Heron, Victor Pasmore, Alan Reynolds, Mary Fedden, Paul Feiler and Adrian Heath were given their big break by the gallery. Today, The Redfern continues to promote the best of modern British art, having supported the critically-acclaimed museum retrospectives of Feiler, William Gear, Margaret Mellis, David Tindle, and most recently, Eileen Agar.
2023
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster guest edits CATALOGUE, and is the recipient of Cork Street’s 2023 Banners Commission
CATALOGUE, the journal for contemporary art published by Cork Street Galleries, invites Paris-based experimental artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster as guest editor of edition 6.0. The publication platforms house of dgf, @houseofdgf on Instagram, an idea, community, place of learning and exchange relating to students and alumni of her class at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Introducing house of dgf in print for the first time, it is commissioned as part of a triple strand of works from the artist, alongside a series of banners exhibited over Cork Street, and a concert by Exotourisme, her sonic collaboration with Julien Perez.
Featuring a giant, metallic ‘@’ symbol on the cover, something the artist first featured in her work in the late 80s, presaging its looming presence on our connected lives, the project emerged in genesis from Alienarium 5, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s 2022 exhibition at Serpentine curated by Claude Adjil and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
The @houseofdgf Banners Commission 2023 features work by Catherina Cramer & Giulietta Ockenfuss, Cristiana Cott Negoescu, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Fabian Friese, Fynn Ribbeck, Hedda Schattanik & Roman Szczesny, Jieun Lim, Klara Virnich, Lex Rütten & Jana Kerima Stolzer, Lukas Panek, Luki Von der Gracht, Mira Mann, Moritz Krauth, Naiyun Yang and Nicholas Grafia.