All hail the must see London Art Fair which returns to its January slot from 18-22 January 2023, launching the London and international art collecting calendar with a superb selection of Modern and Contemporary art. The Fair will offer seasoned and aspiring collectors a diverse presentation of artworks alongside curated displays and an inspiring programme of talks, panel discussions and artists’ insights.
In addition, London Art Fair continues to champion and support regional museums through its annual Museum Partnership, which this year invites the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, who will present key highlights from their outstanding collection to the Fair showcasing the rich contribution to British art made by Jewish, immigrant, and refugee artists.
2023 GALLERIES – FULL EXHIBITOR LIST
155A Gallery, Advanced Graphics London, Alan Wheatley Art, Aleph Contemporary, April Contemporary, Architectural Heritage ltd, Art First, Art Gallery O-68, Art Mûr, ARTE GLOBALE, Artistellar Gallery, ARTITLEDcontemporary, Austin / Desmond Fine Art, Beardsmore Gallery, Beaux Arts Bath, Broadbent, Browse & Darby, Cactus Moon Studio, Candida Stevens Gallery, Castlegate House Gallery, Cavaliero Finn, CHARLIE SMITH London, Christopher Kingzett Fine Art, Circle, Contemporary, Columbia Road Gallery, Crane Kalman Brighton, Crane Kalman Gallery, Cross Lane Projects, Darl-e and the Bear, David Messum Fine Art, DOMOBAAL, Duncan R Miller Fine Arts, ECAD Gallery, Elizabeth Xi Bauer, Fiumano Clase, Gala Fine Art, Galerie Calderone, Galerie Olivier Waltman, Galleri Fold, Gallery Different, GBS Fine Art Ltd, Gilden’s Arts Gallery, Glasgow Print Studio, Goodman Fine Art Limited, Hang Up Gallery, Hidden Gallery, Horton London, James Freeman Gallery, Janet Rady Fine Art, Jealous Gallery, Jenna Burlingham Fine Art, Jill George Gallery, Julian Page, K+Y Gallery, Kevin Kavanagh, Kittoe Contemporary, Koop Projects Ltd, Lemon Street Gallery, Long & Ryle, MADEINBRITALY, Marcus, Campbell Art Books, Mollbrinks Art Gallery, Narborough, Osborne Samuel Ltd, Panter & Hall, Piano Nobile, Portal Painters, Portland Gallery, Purdy Hicks Gallery, Quantum Contemporary Art, Rabley Contemporary, RAW Editions, Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, Redfern GalleryRowntree Clark, Ruup & Form, Shame Gallery, Shtager Gallery, SIGNET CONTEMPORARY ART, Stoney Road Press, TAG Fine Arts, Tanya Baxter Contemporary, The Finch project, The Nine British Art, Thomas Spencer Fine Art, Thompson’s Gallery, TIN MAN ART, Union Gallery, VirginiaVisualArts, Wilder Gallery, Willoughby Gerrish, Zuleika Gallery
This year will see the participation of over 100 galleries from around the world, including Iceland, Belgium, America and Sweden, with new exhibitors Art Gallery O68, Willoughby Gerrish, and Koop Projects, alongside returning names such as Austin Desmond Fine Art, Piano Nobile, and ARTITLEDcontemporary. The Fair will also feature work by some of the world’s most renowned artists, including works by Paula Rego, Tracey Emin, Marc Chagall, Roy Lichtenstein, Bridget Riley, Pablo Picasso, Grayson Perry, Salvador Dali, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Julien Opie.
These esteemed artists will be exhibited alongside the following international contemporary names. Contemporary gallery highlights include The Finch Project, Elizabeth XI Bauer, and Artistellar – an innovative gallery which launched and showcased exciting emerging talents during the Covid-19 pandemic.
London Art Fair’s specialism in Modern Art continues to be strongly represented through the participation of some of the UK’s leading galleries in the field. Terry Frost’s striking ‘Red, Black and Blue Arrows’ will be showcased by Osborne Samuel, among other Modern British works. Meanwhile, Thomas Spencer Fine Art will present works by Keith Vaughan, a Henry Moore bronze from a private collection, and Victor Pasmore prints from a private collection which were gifted directly to the private source by Victor himself. The Redfern Gallery will be celebrating its centenary year and the centenary of Adrian Heath (1920-1992) with works from a career that spanned six decades.
Purdy Hicks will unveil Sandra Kantanen’s new series, Herbarium, at the Fair for the first time. The series presents familiar and exotic plants with microscopic precision, revealing the intricacy and delicacy of nature’s structures. Alongside this is a display of three fabulous book paintings by Ralph Fleck, whose painterly language involves movement between moments of close observation and of objective distance.
Special thematic presentations include RAW Editions’s all-woman booth featuring pieces by Bridget Riley, Louise Bourgeois, and Barbara Kruger, who seek to explore the possibilities of their chosen mediums by engaging in historic, art-historic, political and aesthetic discourse; Candida Stevens’ ambitious curation titled If You Could Save One Place, a significant work created by the collaboration of 12 international artists which demonstrates their response to its title’s question. If You Could Save One Place encourages contemplation of the varying global reactions to, and ramifications of, climate change. Meanwhile, Koop Projects’ stand is dedicated to presenting African artists who transform discarded materials to explore individual and collective identity themes.
CURATED SECTIONS
London Art Fair reflects the contemporary practice and collecting trends within the art world through its critically-acclaimed sections curated in collaboration with leading experts.
Platform
For the 5th edition of Platform, art historian and author Ruth Millington present a collection of galleries whose artists collaborate with inspiring individuals, reframing the muse as an empowered and active agent in the story of art. This year’s edition of Platform, titled ‘Reframing the Muse’, invites viewers to consider the instrumental role played by diverse, real-life individuals, past and present, beyond the frame in which they are immortalised.
Museum Partnership – Ben Uri
London Art Fair has partnered with London’s Ben Uri Gallery and Museum for its annual Museum Partnership. The Museum Partnership provides a central London platform and a significant opportunity for patrons, collectors and general Fair visitors to engage with an exhibition of exceptional museum quality works – bringing some of our most important regional private collections into the public domain.
The works on display, which include paintings and sculptures, focus on the immigrant experience, speaking to the rich contribution to British art made by Jewish, immigrant, and refugee artists, which is Ben Uri’s DNA. The collection includes Frank Auerbach’s Mornington Crescent, Summer Morning II, David Bomberg’s Racehorses and an artwork by British-Iranian visual artist Zory Shahrokhi which Ben Uri commissioned in response to Liberators: 12 Extraordinary Women Artists from the Ben Uri Collection.
In 2018, the Museum published a transformative Strategic Plan, which propelled a proactive shift to create the first full-scale digital Museum and research centre, which complemented Ben Uri’s vibrant gallery programming. The redefined, digitised, the unique collection reflects the broader immigrant landscape and contribution to British Art, including 880 works by 390 artists from 45 different countries of birth.
Encounters
Encounters is a new section launching at the London Art Fair 2023 curated by journalist, curator, and member of the Encounters Selection Committee, Pryle Behrman. Formerly Art Projects, Encounters showcases the freshest contemporary art from across the globe. It features young, up-and-coming galleries eager to present their emerging artists on a robust platform alongside established names creating new and exciting work, taking their practice in a different direction.
The new section of curated solo and group presentations is where the two meanings of the word ‘encounter’ meet. An encounter is often unexpected, perhaps leading to the discovery of an unknown artist or an unpredictable style or theme; an encounter can also suggest a confrontation between opposing positions and artworks that challenge entrenched views and understandings.
Highlights include a display by Shame Gallery, whose pieces by Nathan French, originally a fashion designer, reference the diversity of tempers, moods and thoughts that occur inside every one of us; Catherine Anholt’s paintings at TIN MAN ART see the artist exploring a range of emotions and experiences spanning childhood, parenting, the natural world, birth and death, having previously been primarily known as an author and illustrator of children’s books. Finally, at April Contemporary, an installation by Luqmaan Godfrey – the artist’s alter ego of muralist Damilola Odusote – combines mixed media drawings, poems, texts, collages, and murals to present ‘reality’ as a continually changing map that is both malleable and wholly transient.
Photo50
Photo50 is the Fair’s critical forum for examining distinctive elements in contemporary photography. For 2023, Photo50 is curated by Pelumi Odubanjo and Katy Barron, who will present the work of a group of multigenerational women and non-binary photographers whose practice engages with their Black and diasporic heritage. Through their lens, the exhibition will explore domestic life and the idea of ‘home’.
The exhibition echoes Saidiya Hartmann’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals; as such, this year’s exhibition is named Beautiful Experiments. Beautiful Experiments includes works from the 1980s to the present day and presents diverse imagery by artists that reflect their histories and personal ideas of home and identity. The exhibition will think through ideas of ‘home’ in several ways – as a safe space, a queer space, an invisible space, a space of isolation, a place of memory, and the notion of home outside the family home. In addition, it will consider the difference between generational approaches and the wide-ranging uses of photographs and archival materials.
LONDON ART FAIR – 18 – 22 January 2023 Business Design Centre, 52 Upper St, London N1 0QH Complete ticket types and prices Tickets
DATES/TIMES:
Press Preview Tuesday 17 January: 11 am – 2 pm
VIP Preview Tuesday 17 January: 2 pm – 5 pm
Fair Times Preview Evening: Tuesday 17 January: 5 pm-9 pm
Wednesday 18 January: 11 am – 9 pm
Private View: Wednesday 18 January: 5 pm-9 pm
Thursday, 19 January: 11 am – 9 pm
Thursday Late 19 January: 5 pm – 9 pm
Friday 20 January: 11 am – 7 pm
Saturday 21 January: 11 am – 7 pm
Sunday 22 January: 11 am – 5 pm
London Art Fair was founded in 1989 by London’s Business Design Centre in Islington – where the Fair still takes place today – to provide a space to showcase exceptional Modern and Contemporary Art, discover, and buy. Launching with just 36 UK galleries, the Fair has grown steadily over the years, with well over 100 galleries regularly exhibiting.
The Fair provides a home for Modern British Art and embraces an increasingly international and contemporary outlook, with new galleries from around the world expanding our offer and reach – these now make up 25% of our exhibitors and continue to grow.
The London Art Fair nurtures collecting at all levels, from prints and editions starting in the hundreds to significant works by internationally renowned artists, including works by Grayson Perry, Bridget Riley, Henry Moore, and David Bomberg.
Providing a platform for nurturing talent, the London Art Fair has played host to acclaimed artists early in their careers and established names. Chris Ofili and Jenny Saville were awarded ‘rising star’ awards at the 1996 edition.
The Fair’s extensive gallery lineup showcases a diverse cross-section of art from emerging talent to established art world favourites, alongside an inspiring programme of curated talks, panel discussions and artists’ insights.
Top Photo: Artlyst © 2022