Pace Gallery president and CEO Marc Glimcher has announced plans to expand the gallery’s presence in London with a new 800 square metre location at 4 Hanover Square. The new gallery will take over and add to spaces previously occupied by Blain Southern gallery, which closed its doors at the site in February this year, after going into administration.
Pace, which has a string of galleries in the US, Hong Kong, Korea and Switzerland, will open its new London venue in autumn 2021, following renovations by Jamie Fobert Architects, who will transform the interior architecture of the existing building to incorporate a number of flexible gallery spaces. Fobert’s refurbishment will include two galleries on the first floor and open up the basement level to create an additional 100 sqm public gallery.
The New York-headquartered gallery first opened in London on Lexington Street in 2011, before leasing spaces in a wing of 6 Burlington Gardens – part of the Royal Academy’s complex of buildings in Piccadilly – in 2012. At Burlington Gardens Pace mounted exhibitions by Adam Pendleton, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Lee Ufan and Agnes Martin, among others.
Pace says it will use the expanded platform to engage with more European artists and continue to grow its contemporary programme, which has recently seen the additions of Sonia Gomes, Torkwase Dyson, Beatriz Milhazes and Trevor Paglen. The spaces will allow the gallery to develop its live and experimental programming: the first ‘Pace Live’ event outside of New York will be staged at the new gallery in 2021.
The expansion comes a time of uncertainty for galleries in the UK and Europe, with Brexit now only weeks away. But Glimcher says that ‘this is a time for investment and faith in London. Its role as a cultural hub remains undisputed given the number of world class institutions on its turf, and even staring into the face of Brexit I am convinced that London will remain an economic capital of Europe and a crucial center for the art market.’
