Pace Gallery has unveiled its new London home at 5 Hanover Square with inaugural shows by New York-based artist Torkwase Dyson and late abstract expressionist legend Mark Rothko.
Dyson’s Liquid a Place will serve as a dynamic inaugural offering for the gallery. On view from 8 October – 6 November, coinciding with Frieze Week 2021, the multi-media installation transforms one of the new gallery spaces with sculptures, activated by a site-specific sound piece.
Exterior view of Pace’s new gallery at 5 Hanover Square, London.
The artist, self-described as a painter across different media, grapples with how space is perceived and negotiated, particularly by Black and Brown bodies. On 7, 9 and 11 October as part of Pace Live, Dyson’s installation becomes a stage for leading writers, poets, dancers and musicians, selected by the artist, to engage with issues of environmental racism, spatial liberation and sensoria.
‘Working in London offers me the opportunity to lengthen my questions around human geography. This history/timeline of carving the earth, the construction of the canals and all the mechanistic infrastructure and architecture connected to it. And the River Thames’ history of docks and dispossession,’ says Dyson. ‘What is systemic world building? How do we separate planetary world building and issues of climate change and relationship/difference to the Western construction of the universal that flattens and disappears people? When I continue my research in the space it simply also opens up space to hold liberation strategies and recognise autonomy/self-possession.’
Detail of Torkwase Dyson’s Liquid a Place at Pace gallery, London.
Elsewhere in the gallery, Mark Rothko’s ‘1968: Clearing Away’, offers a show of rarely seen paintings on paper created during the final years of the artist’s life. These works, developed during a time of ill-health and personal troubles for Rothko, mark a shift in scale from his characteristically monumental canvases to smaller works on paper. Though intimate in scale, these works are no less intense, meditative or intoxicating.
The gallery, previously home to Blain Southern, which closed in 2020, has been reimagined by Jamie Fobert Architects, the practice involved with Pace’s original London gallery on Lexington Street.
Fobert has transformed the interior architecture of the existing building, creating versatile galleries across two floors. The levels will be connected by a new feature staircase rendered in black steel. ‘At the beginning of the project, Pace considered carefully the way gallery spaces should relate to workspaces within the new gallery. This became the generating idea of our work,’ says Fobert. ‘The positioning of volumes and connections, both horizontal and vertical, has created a sense of fluid movement through the building. Art spaces and workspaces are integrated, giving the visitor a continuous dynamic experience.’ *
‘Mark Rothko 1968: Clearing Away’, Pace Gallery, 5 Hanover Square, London, 8 October – 13 November 2021. Artwork on paper by Mark Rothko Copyright © 2020 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko. courtesy Pace Gallery
INFORMATION
Torkwase Dyson: ‘Liquid a Place’. Exhibition: 8 October – 6 November 2021 Performances: October 7, 9, 11, 2021
‘Mark Rothko 1968: Clearing Away’, 8 October – 13 November 2021
ADDRESS
Pace Gallery
5 Hanover Square
London W1S 1HE
-
An architect’s own home offers a refined and leafy retreat from its East London surroundingsStudioshaw has completed a courtyard house in amongst a cluster of traditional terraced houses, harnessing the sun and plenty of greenery to bolster privacy and warmth
-
Finlandia Hall bistro blends culinary indulgence with reborn modernismFinlandia Hall bistro opens in Helsinki, adding a foodie dimension to the Finnish modernist architecture marvel by Alvar Aalto
-
Reimagining remembrance: Urn Studios introduces artistic urns to the UKBridging the gap between art and memory, Urn Studios offers contemporary, handcrafted funeral urns designed to be proudly displayed
-
The enduring appeal of Transport for London’s seat designsFrom artist Rita Keegan’s new collage to fashion designer Adam Jones’ Overground suit, TfL moquettes continue to enjoy a cult status
-
‘There's a lot to fear and a lot to love in this world’: Penny Goring unveils new work in LondonA new collection of large-scale collages takes centre stage at 'Penny Goring: Cold Hunt Corsage' at Arcadia Missa, London
-
‘Leigh Bowery!’ at Tate Modern: 1980s alt-glamour, club culture and rebellionThe new Leigh Bowery exhibition in London is a dazzling, sequin-drenched look back at the 1980s, through the life of one of its brightest stars
-
‘Yay, To Have a Mouth!’: a London show explores our oral fixation, from Freud to fairytalesThis group show at Rose Easton gallery in east London, created in collaboration with Ginny on Frederick, uncovers our fascination with the mouth
-
High low culture and the sickly sweetness of Tootsie Rolls: Derrick Adams in LondonDerrick Adams plays with themes of Black Americana in ‘Situation Comedy’ at Gagosian London.
-
The Barbican as muse: composer Shiva Feshareki on bringing the brutalist icon to life through musicFor the last two years, British-Iranian experimental composer and turntablist Shiva Feshareki has been drawing on the Barbican’s hidden history as a gateway for her new piece. She talks to Wallpaper* about her Brutalist muse
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA taste of the dolce vita in London, some permanent artwork and a new eyeshadow palette – it's our editors' picks of the week
-
'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
