Our radar, just like yours, always hones up at the beginning of a new year, mapping up what's to come in terms of art, places and travel. We kick off 2024 with mentions of five galleries in four different cities that are of interest as we move around, in and outside of Stockholm. Sometimes escaping Stockholm to breathe fresh art into our system and leaving the duck pond, for a minute.
Installation view of Sydney Vernon's self-titled exhibition, KAPP KAPP, September 15 - November 3, 2023
KAPP KAPP, New York
While not entirely a new gallery, and one that opened already in Philadelphia in 2019 by twin brothers Sam and Daniel Kapp (twins! Like the founders of this very magazine and platform), Kapp Kapp has been on our radar repeatedly in recent pandemic and post-pandemic time, per way of the exhibited artists and the gallery roster. Located in Tribeca, the brothers of Kapp Kapp recently just made it on to Forbes magazine's "30 Under 30 - Art & Style" list as gallerists. Impressive. Actually, two of the artists who were shortlisted and featured in the our first magazine issue in print; C-print FUTURE WATCH ISSUE have both shown with the gallery; Asif Hoque in a group exhibition curated by Anne-Laure Lemaitre, back in 2021, and Sydney Vernon who is represented by the gallery today, and at the time of our magazine production was still completing her BFA degree from Cooper Union, in a more recent solo exhibition. Most notably the gallery both represents and champions the iconic work of infamous New York-based photographer Stanley Stellar whose lense has tenderly captured gay and queer men inside and outside of his studio since the 70's. The artist generously shares his work on his Instagram and you are advised to follow to experience queer New Yorkian history and beautiful images that excude a unmistakable lust for life.
86 Walker St., 4th Fl.New York
www.kappkap.com
Betelhem Makonnen, Still is still moving, installation view, Occasional Gallery, Chicago, 2018. Still on view from (w)here is here, single channel video, 2014-16.
Occasional Gallery, nomadic/Stockholm
A feature that has recurred in this magazine over time is one we've called "Future Curator Watch". American Swedish artist and curator Erika Råberg is one who would easily be the subject of such presentation. Having recently been involved as one of her external examiners as she finished her MA degree in Curating Art at Stockholm University just before the end of last year, we know she'll emerge into view, making her presence known by serving the local art scene with some very interesting plans that are in the making for this year. In her capacity as an artist she earnt an MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she also taught as an educator herself. While in Chicago, she produced and presented independent curatorial projects as Occasional Gallery, taking the shape of an apartment gallery. We're lucky that she is gearing to up to soon transplant the nomadic gallery with Stockholm as its base for now. Stockholm certainly needs the addition; and while Stockolm has its merits as an art scene, it's neither that dynamic as to hold very many platforms like these, nor the city that easily facilitates them or their existence.
The closest kin will prove to be the collective operating succesfully towards its own audience as Flat Octopus, on similar grounds. "I started Occasional as a way to get to know other artists' practices in unexpected ways. We experience works so differently when they’re in a domestic space — the change of scale, shifts in light, simply getting to live with them for a couple weeks. I’m really looking forward to sharing these thought-experiments here in Stockholm", shares Råberg with us. For now find the gallery on Instagram and keep close watch for the platform's first offering in its new domicile.
www.instagram.com/occasional_gallery
Jan Meissner, Corona Nights, Installation view, COL Gallery, San Fransisco, December 1, 2023 - January 5, 2024
COL Gallery, San Francisco
COL Gallery was inaugurated as a project-based, contemporary gallery in San Fransisco only last year by co-founders Callie Jones and Julia Li, in the long-standing bayside landmark that is Ghirardelli Square, and inside a community space that also marks the home of sculptor Ruth Asawa's first public work. On a sidenote; the late, great Asawa, much like San Fransisco was still until recently largely overlooked outside of California (things changed with representation of her estate by David Zwirner in 2017; add also the Venice Biennale of 2022 and an exhibition at The Whitney showing in its last days next week). While admittedly it's been a while since we last touched base in the Bay Area ourselves, a gallery like Jessica Silverman Gallery (founded in 2008), that has thrivingly put the area on the international art map, has often had us glancing over with interest. With many of the established galleries; often eponymous and founded back in the 80-90's, or even 70's, it definitely appears like COL Gallery will be reinvigorating some fresh breeze into the shores, and we'll be sure to pay a visit later in the year. This year's exhibition calendar begins on Friday with a solo ("Jaguar Dreams") by Mexican, Dallas-based painter Francisco Moreno whose work reimagines art history the way it would have been experienced, with bodies present that were excluded from the Western art canon. "I've always admired how Francisco masterfully blends cultures and time periods and interrogates the European painting tradition.", says the gallery's Callie Jones.
887 Beach St, San Francisco
www.colgallery.com
Vincent Haynes, 2023, Installation view, ACKERMAN CLARKE, Chicago, November 17 - January 13, 2024
Ackerman Clarke, Chicago
What we've gathered about Chicago over time is the artist-run scene is ever so flourishing with artist-run galleries and project spaces appearing to have gained traction and a standing with an audience (even collectors) pretty fast. Speaking to professionals, that impression certainly has been had, and at times also been witnessed. The only other city that ever brought such prosperity immediatley to mind was Vienna. Between reputable galleries like Kavi Gupta, Rhona Hoffman Gallery and Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, and institutions like The Renaissance Society, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and The Art Institute of Chicago, a lot of the exciting "stuff" is being cooked outside of the sites of the usual suspects. A new fixture in the commercial gallery scene is Ackerman Clarke that is presenting what is still its fifth exhibition as per today's date, having also recently particpated at NADA art fair in Miami, in December. As for that fifth exhibition that runs through this Saturday; it's a solo exhibition by a gem and a friend; Bremen-based Vincent Haynes (an MFA grad of University of Chicago) who presented not just one, but two exhibitions in Stockholm, curated by C-print's Ashik Zaman, including a solo exhibition ("Bankett") at the Goethe Institut-Schweden. His painterly command of surveying the visual language, icongraphies and manifestations of power earns him a distinctive edge of his own, and having recently seen the exhibition before Christmas; we can vouch that it's one you should watch given the chance. Found between Logan Square and (West) Bucktown, the location is exciting away from art clusters, a bit non-descript, but adding pleasantly to the visit.
2544 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago
www.ackermanclarke.com
Philip Mueller, Garden of the Giants, presented by Carbon 12, December 7 2022 - January 27 2023, DIANA, installation view, New York
DIANA, New York
For anyone who's been frequenting NYC in the most recent years, the gallery streak around Henry Street in Chinatown will come as absolute no surprise. In 2022, Artnet reported that Henry Street is the city's "new affordable, experimental art hub", prefacing it then with the rhetoric question of what impact it would have when signed low rent leases finally come to an expiry. With Lyles & King being an anchor in these hoods, other galleries that have served us well in the last two years are ATMGallery, Long Story Short (with venues too in LA and Paris) and M 2 3. DIANA kicked off on Henry Street in the fall of 2022 as the joint brainchild and cooperative exhibition space of Carbon 12 (Dubai), Macaulay & Co (Vancouver) and FIERMAN (NYC). The inaugural group exhibition presented among other artists; Amba Saya-Bennett, a British artist and sculptor we've taken a keen interest in and who you should turn an eye towards as well. Next up and opening this Friday is Montréal-based Nadia Myre's solo "After the Fire, and other work" with ceramical and glass sculptures. Looks like it will be real nifty, this exhibition.
www.diananewyork.com
Ashik & Koshik Zaman