The critic
p>Name: Nick Hackworth, 30Gallery: Paradise Row
After studying history at Oxford University, Hackworth (above) became an art critic at London's Evening Standard for seven years before opening his gallery last year.
Paradise Row is a typical East End space in that it is impossible to find: down a side-street and up a discreet metal staircase to an imposing door with no visible handle. Within the cavernous interior, Hackworth with his dark brooding looks and Romantic poet appearance stages shows with drama and ambition. "Having a gallery suits my nature more than writing," he says. "I enjoy promoting people and I like the theatrical element of putting on shows. l like work that is epic, that engages with grand themes of culture and tradition. All the artists that show here are very different but their work does engage with the world at large. It's not necessarily a popular idea of what art should be."
He's not kidding: recently, he covered the gallery floor with 17 tonnes of salt to form a crystal-white sea a few feet deep. A Victorian boat was assembled on top of the salt and in this boat sat the artist Eloise Fornieles, for 48 continuous hours, with no sleep, taking messages from the audience.
The collector
Name: Virginia Damtsa, 30
Gallery: Riflemaker
Damtsa is the half-Greek, half-French owner of west London's innovative Riflemaker gallery. Once a dancer, she has the physique and poise of her former profession. She and her business partner Tot Taylor were both art collectors when they met, at the first Frieze art fair five years ago.
"I started out buying art for my family although then it was Old Masters and 19th-century paintings. As a teenager, my uncle would fly me to New York to bid at auctions for him. I began my own collection in my twenties, buying contemporary artists such as Marta Marc. I like work that is conceptually and aesthetically strong. It has to work on both levels.
Damtsa opened the first Riflemaker in 2004 followed by a second space in Soho Square last month. Unlike industrial East End spaces, the galleries are quirky 18th-century London townhouses. They're a favourite with the Soho-based film world: actors and directors are regular clients.
Riflemaker caught the imagination with a recreation of the original 1960s Indica gallery, not to mention a series of piss paintings by Gavin Turk in which gallery visitors urinated from the first-floor window on to copper-covered canvas, the urine becoming crystals of jade green as it oxidized.
The rock royal
Name: Tyrone Wood, 24
Gallery: Scream
The softly spoken youngest son of Rolling Stones bassist Ronnie Wood runs the West End's Scream gallery, just off Bond Street. "My dad was a painter before he became a musician. He got me into art," he explains. "I've lots of friends and family who all paint so I grew up around art. Although I didn't go to art school, I learnt everything from looking at work. I'm always looking for new artists."
Tyrone works alongside a more experienced curator in Serena Morton (pictured below with Wood), who used to work at Christie's. She's in charge of the business; Tyrone scouts for young artists and organises a few exhibitions a year.
The work on show has a rock'*'roll edge and there's an atmosphere of celebrity in the gallery. A gold portrait of Kate Moss by Russell Young hangs alongside one of Pete Doherty; there are illustrations of Karl Largerfeld; every year, Ronnie Wood has an exhibition of his work; and Tyrone's friend, Vito Schnabel, son of the famous artist Julian, had an exhibition there recently. "I often meet new artists for the gallery through friends," says Wood. "And I go to New York about six times a year, where I look for artists and space to show. I love the whole New York thing."
The aristocrats
Name: Tom Hanbury, 28, and Rodolphe von Hofmannsthal, 27
Gallery: Dicksmith
Hanbury is a descendent of Sir Thomas Hanbury, who created the famous Hanbury gardens in Genoa, Italy. A trained artist, he was educated at the Ruskin art school in Oxford and then Chelsea College of Art. Von Hofmannsthal is an aristocratic Scandinavian, the great-grandson of the literary giant Hugo, librettist to Strauss.
The pair met while bidding for the same artwork at Christie's in New York. They became friends and started their gallery four years ago, when Von Hofmannsthal's parents bought a flat for their son in a Hoxton townhouse. "The two main rooms were used as a gallery, which left Rodolphe sleeping on a roll-up mattress on the floor," reveals Hanbury.
Their gallery, Dicksmith, recently moved into a new space in a former industrial building just off Whitechapel in London's East End, and it is being taken seriously enough to have procured a stand at this year's Frieze art fair .
The pair have built their reputation showing artists such as Duncan Marquiss, a Scottish film-maker, whose piece set in Aberdeenshire explores the shady locations that were historically associated with the practice of witchcraft.
The artist
Name: Edward Fornieles, 24
Gallery: The Wallis Gallery
Fornieles cuts an eccentric figure, elegant in his battered suit jacket, scruffy trousers and shoes. The remnants of a bruise circle one eye from a piece of performance art in which he allowed an Oxford University boxing captain to hit him.
At the Wallis Gallery, a vast crumbling warehouse in front of the burnt-out Olympic site in Hackney Wick, commerce is a low priority cash from sales goes towards improving the space. "After leaving art school in Oxford, I set up the gallery with Ross McNicol and Vanessa Carlos," says Fornieles. "I was frustrated that no one would show my work. I work as an assistant for Anish Kapoor and I persuaded him to donate a small sum towards it 'Whatever you can afford,' I said.
"It's an experimental space. We had a performance evening where critics came expecting to drink champagne but I locked visitors in a dark chamber for four minutes and 23 seconds. It was like solitary confinement."
Fornieles has had some success McNicol was recently taken up by Hugh Allen, who works with Damien Hirst.
The gallery doubles as Fornieles' home, though it's not at all homely. He lives amid strange-looking objects, including a luminous pink silk tent that dominates the sitting-room.
No comments:
Post a Comment