Arriving at Connolly in Mayfair, there is an immediate awareness of its subtle elegance. Whether you intend to source a work of art or an expertly tailored jacket, every aspect of the Georgian townhouse and its contents has been thoughtfully designed to elevate and inspire.
Established in 1878, the thriving British heritage brand has provided the leather for Aston Martin, Jaguar as well as the iconic Eames chair. Isabel Ettedgui, Connolly’s owner, fell in love with the historic Clifford Street building when she was relaunching the brand that her late husband Joseph Ettedgui had acquired in 2000. She swiftly commissioned the Paris-based architects and designers Gilles & Boissier to oversee its masterful renovation.
In recent years, Connolly has shown a series of thought-provoking exhibitions including those by Rich Stapleton and Alba Hodsoll but ‘Fenduq’ by Belgian artist Eric van Hove underlines their devotion to the automotive. Curated with art historian Clara Zevi, van Hove presents a series of exquisite replicas of car engines. One of which, a handmade replica of the engine Charles Lindbergh used for the first transatlantic flight, has just been acquired by MoMA, as Ettedgui reveals.
After van Hove and Zevi met by chance in Morocco, he decided that ‘she was onto something, that she was pursuing an intuition’. She runs Artists Support, an organisation that is helping artists to support charities they care about. A percentage of sales will benefit MAMMA, a charity selected by van Hove that preserves Morocco's modernist and post-independence architectural heritage. He believes that ‘philanthropy should be a core aspect of any meaningful endeavour’.
As described by Ettedgui, ‘”Fenduq”, by Eric van Hove celebrates the crafts and community of Morocco and traces it across the centuries, but interpreted with a modern relevance that reaches out to art and function.’ The sculpture exhibition opened on the birthday of her late husband Joseph, founder of the eponymous retail empire, who was born and grew up in Casablanca where he rode a moped.
Van Hove, who was raised in Cameroon, and is based in Marrakech, worked with local craftsmen on ‘Mahjouba IV’, an electric moped built by, and for, the Moroccan market. Ettedgui described it as, ‘a beautiful hand-crafted machine’. She continued: ‘His philosophy and practice challenge how the legacy of craft can be upheld in the face of mass production and consumption.’ It’s an approach that aligns with Connolly’s perspective.
Eric van Hove: 'Fenduq' will be on view in the upstairs gallery at Connolly until 19 April 2023. connollyengland.com
-
Jack White's Third Man Records opens a Paris pop-upJack White's immaculately-branded record store will set up shop in the 9th arrondissement this weekend
-
Designer Marta de la Rica’s elegant Madrid studio is full of perfectly-pitched contradictionsThe studio, or ‘the laboratory’ as de la Rica and her team call it, plays with colour, texture and scale in eminently rewarding ways
-
‘Nothing just because it’s beautiful’: Performance artist Marina Abramović on turning her hand to furniture designMarina Abramović has no qualms about describing her segue into design as a ‘domestication’. But, argues the ‘grandmother of performance art’ as she unveils a collection of chairs, something doesn’t have to be provocative to be meaningful
-
'We need to be constantly reminded of our similarities' – Jonathan Baldock challenges the patriarchal roots of a former Roman temple in LondonThrough use of ceramics and textiles, British artist Jonathan Baldock creates a magical and immersive exhibition at ‘0.1%’ at London's Mithraum Bloomberg Space
-
Discover Rotimi Fani-Kayode's fluid photographs of the queer male body, on show in London‘Rotimi-Fani Kayode: The Studio – Staging Desire’ at Autograph ABP celebrates the work of the Nigerian-born photographer
-
Saatchi Gallery is in full bloom with floral works from Vivienne Westwood, Marimekko, Buccellati and more‘Flowers – Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture’ at Saatchi Gallery, London, explores the relationship between creatives and their floral muses, and spans from fashion and jewellery to tattoos
-
'I want to get into these images and perfume them': Linder's retrospective opens at the Hayward Gallery'Linder: Danger Came Smiling' gathers fifty years of the artist's work at the Hayward Gallery. We meet the punk provocateur ahead of her first retrospective
-
Tasneem Sarkez's heady mix of kitsch, Arabic and Americana hits LondonArtist Tasneem Sarkez draws on an eclectic range of references for her debut solo show, 'White-Knuckle' at Rose Easton
-
‘A call to action for more authentic expressions of working-class life’: a London show reframes working-class BritainLondon exhibition ‘Lives Less Ordinary’, at Two Temple Place, challenges age-old stereotypes
-
‘Dr Tetris’ on the biggest ever iteration of the puzzle in LondonTetris comes to 360-degree, 23,000 sq ft, 16k LED screens in London; Craig McLean speaks to Henk Rogers, the man who’s kept the game alive
-
Never-before-seen Barbara Hepworth works go on show in landmark exhibitionIn ‘Barbara Hepworth: Strings’, various Hepworth sculptures will be exhibited in public for the first time, at Piano Nobile, London
