On Oct. 10, London’s Thomas Dane Gallery will open a second London space just a minute’s walk from the current gallery in St James’s. The opening is timed to the annual Frieze Art Fair. The new addition has a large storefront opposite Christie’s Duke Street Gallery and consists of 2,500 square feet, of which over half is ground-floor exhibition space.
Designed by David Kohn Architects, winners of the 2009 Young Architect of the Year award from the Architecture Foundation, the new gallery will preserve the historical building.
Dane told A.i.A. that the original location at 11 Duke St, with wooden floors reminiscent of a domestic interior, has inspired artists to create distinctive exhibitions. “We are very attached to these rooms, but after seven years and a developing program, the expansion was inevitable,” he said.
The new space at no. 3 is “equally distinguished,” he said. He will not differentiate between them: “To have two spaces at close proximity gives our artists great flexibility and we trust that they will intuitively decide how best they should be used,” he says.
An exhibition of recent paintings and drawings by German painter Albert Oehlen will inaugurate the new space [Oct. 11–Nov. 19]. No. 11 will feature a historic group show, “Chicago Imagists 1966–1973,” with works by Roger Brown, Ed Flood, Art Green, Philip Hanson, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, Christina Ramberg and Karl Wirsum. Both are co-organized and synched with shows at Chicago’s Corbett vs. Dempsey Gallery. A catalogue, Painting on the Move (co-published: Dane; Corbett vs. Dempsey; Ridinghouse) accompanies the double exhibition.
Before opening the gallery in Duke Street in 2004, Thomas Dane was a private dealer and advisor. He worked with important collections in the UK and abroad, including the Monsoon Collection in London and the Daskalopoulos Collection in Greece.
Since its beginnings, Thomas Dane Gallery has staged the first gallery solo-exhibitions in the UK of Kutlug Ataman, Walead Beshty, Abraham Cruzvillegas, José Damasceno, Michel François, John Gerrard, Arturo Herrera, Luisa Lambri, Glenn Ligon, Jean-Luc Moulène, Albert Oehlen, Paul Pfeiffer, Jorge Queiroz and Kelley Walker. The gallery continues to show established and emerging British artists including Hurvin Anderson, Anya Gallaccio, Michael Landy, Caragh Thuring, and Steve McQueen.
