In advance of London’s Frieze Art Fair, local powerhouse gallery White Cube has unveiled a massive new institutional-scale venue on Bermondsey Street, proximal to Tate Modern and the Design Museum. Complementing already existing sites in Hoxton Square and Mason’s Yard, the commercial outfit’s third space in South London boasts 5440sqm of interior area and sits on a plot of 1.7 acres (for reference, Kyoto’s National Museum of Modern Art measures up at roughly 2140sqm of interior area). This also makes White Cube Bermondsey the largest commercial gallery in Britain, and presents a stark contrast to the 4sqm from which dealer Jay Jopling launched his career in 1993.
Renovated by Casper Mueller Kneer Architects of London and Berlin, the former warehouse space dates to the 1970s. The plan is primarily divided between a main viewing area, the South Galleries; a smaller group of North Galleries; and a space for special presentations, 9x9x9, which as its name indicates totals 81sqm. Facilities further include an auditorium for screenings, lectures and other educational programming, and a bookshop.
Inaugurating the South Galleries is the group exhibition “Structure & Absence,” which takes Chinese scholars’ rocks as a starting point for surveying contemporary abstraction in the works of artists ranging from Andreas Gursky and Wade Guyton to Agnes Martin, Gabriel Orozco and Hiroshi Sugimoto. The North Galleries are dedicated to “Inside the White Cube,” profiling the work of three artists who have never shown with the gallery, Marieta Chirulescu, Mary Corse and Kitty Kraus. Christening 9x9x9 is a special presentation of works by Cerith Wyn Evans. Select visitors in town for the art fair got their first look at the new venue in a special reception held Oct 11, the night before the Frieze vernissage.