Marc Quinn is no longer with White Cube, the gallery that has represented him since it first opened in a tiny space in Mayfair in 1993. The departure of the British artist, reported earlier this week by the Baer Faxt newsletter, was confirmed by a gallery spokeswoman today, 11 February. “We are not representing him anymore. We wish him every continued success with his future projects,” she said adding that the split had taken place “in the last couple of weeks”. Quinn did not respond to emails.
This marks the end of a professional relationship that stretches back more than 20 years and lies at the heart of the so-called Young British Artists (YBA) movement. Quinn is the first artist that White Cube founder Jay Jopling ever worked with: in 1991 the dealer organised Quinn’s first show in London, Out of Time at the Grob Gallery in Dering Street, which included several sculptures of hands made out of bread and stuck to the wall, as well as the first edition of Self, Quinn’s now-famous self-portrait cast from his own blood and displayed inside a refrigeration unit.
Last July, White Cube Bermondsey inaugurated the first solo show of Quinn’s work in five years. Entitled The Toxic Sublime, it included gigantic metal and concrete sea shells, and a series of seascapes on canvas. It closed in September.
