16 September 2021 We are pleased to announce the opening of our new 4,000 square foot gallery on Little Titchfield Street. The gallery opens with a solo exhibition by Noémie Goudal, the first artist to join our roster in 2010 and whose work we are presenting in a solo booth at Frieze London in 2021. Our relocation to the heart of Fitzrovia’s gallery community signals a long-term commitment to the area of London that has been home to Edel Assanti for the past six years.
The new space is being designed by London architects Sanchez Benton. The historic listed building was constructed in 1903 by Edwardian architect Beresford Pite in his signature Arts and Crafts style, originally serving as the first Young Women’s Christian Association hostel.
The gallery’s expanded footprint paves the way for new programme developments – in 2022 we will present solo exhibitions by five new artists to our programme, including first London solo exhibitions for Emmanuel Van der Auwera, Agata Bogacka and Lonnie Holley. Holley’s show will be his first UK solo exhibition since his 2004 retrospective at Ikon Gallery, and coincide with the second edition of London Gallery Weekend in May.
The design of the new space has been artist-led, emphasising the dramatic proportions of the two ground floor galleries (with entrances on Little Titchfield Street and Mortimer Street). A seven-metre-high conservatory bathes the space in natural light, while the ground floor galleries’ combined twenty-six metre length provides space for large-scale installations by our artists whose practices comprise site-specific work, such as Jodie Carey, Marcin Dudek, Victoria Lomasko and Oren Pinhassi.
The lower ground floor includes a third gallery space, enabling the presentation of two concurrent exhibitions, with a project-led programme planned to introduce new artists to the gallery’s audience, starting with exhibitions by London-based artists Nour El Saleh and Anna Perach. The Mortimer Street space will host a biannual gallery residency, providing a free platform for overseas partner galleries to stage exhibitions in London at peak times of year.
Inaugural Exhibition
Noémie Goudal’s inaugural exhibition encompasses both floors of the building in an expansive presentation of work produced over the past two years. Goudal’s recent work examines the earth’s landscape from the perspective of deep time. Measured in millions of years, this timescale reveals the geographies that define landscapes to be merely momentary states of flux.
The main space presents two new photographic series housed within a site-responsive installation. The gallery’s floor is concealed beneath an installation resembling a jigsaw puzzle of wooden, rectangular platforms, installed across the space at varying heights. Navigating this uneven landscape, the viewer encounters photographs suspended on freestanding tripods. The images are illuminated by low hanging neon strip-lights, evoking rudimentary human outposts in tropical regions. The photographs themselves provide windows onto illusionistic installations staged by the artist within the jungle, prompting us to question the authenticity of the scenes alongside our constructed conceptions of the natural world.
The ground floor Mortimer Street gallery presents an anamorphosis installation – a layered, photographic sculpture that appears to represent a distorted image until it is viewed from the perfect optical vantage point, from which a perfect image suddenly comes into focus. Goudal’s latest film diptych will be on view in the downstairs gallery, a sequel to the film which will be presented by the gallery at Frieze London 2021.
Press contact details
Sam Talbot // sam@sam-talbot.com // 07725184630
