The London art dealer Amanda Wilkinson is launching a new gallery at 18 Brewer Street in Soho later this month. She and Anthony Wilkinson closed their East End space in July, going their separate ways after 20 years.
“I found this little jewel of a space bang in the middle of Soho, which is my favourite part of the West End,” Wilkinson says of her new first-floor, 500 sq. ft gallery. “There’s such an abundance of massive spaces in the art world, and there’s so much production involved in filling them,” she says. “Some of the most amazing collections of 1960s and 1970s conceptual art you could house in a bookcase. Putting together a collection doesn’t have to mean massive production and storage costs.”
Amanda Wilkinson Gallery launches on 18 November with an exhibition by the Korean artist Jewyo Rhii. The new installation was created in response to a written description by the Dutch historian Irene Veenstra of one of Rhii’s earlier works, Night Studio (2010), where the artist briefly opened her home in Seoul to visitors, adapting the interior to accommodate the public.
“Jewyo is fantastic with all types of spaces–from the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven [where the ephemera from Night Studio were shown in 2013] to much smaller exhibitions,” Wilkinson says.
Rhii is among 13 artists Wilkinson has brought with her from her previous gallery, including the pioneering female artists Joan Jonas and Laurie Simmons and Sung Hwan Kim, who was the first to perform in The Tanks when they opened at Tate Modern in 2012. Wilkinson also continues to represent the estate of Derek Jarman.