Although sometimes thought of as the gallery equivalent of a gone fishin’ sign for an art world that largely shuts down after Art Basel in June, summer group shows, ranging from the serious to the irreverent, can prove lucrative for some galleries during the usually dry months of July and August.
London's Ibid gallery may have playfully called its summer show Holiday (until 6 August), but it has works by major names, such as Francis Picabia, Alberto Giacometti, David Hockney, Allen Jones, Yayoi Kusama and Henri Matisse. “These summer shows are just as important as any other because everyone's around Europe for Basel this year," says Chelsea Zaharczuk, the gallery’s associate director. "Also, we have Manifesta11 [in Zurich, until 18 September], and there's the Tate Modern opening [of the Switch House extension]."
The independent curator and writer Neville Wakefield is curating the show Mount Analogue (16 July-14 August), at Performance Ski in Aspen, Colorado. "Housed in the resort town’s premier ski shop that has been specifically redesigned for the exhibition, Mount Analogue brings together a wide range of contemporary artists who examine the cultural history of the mountains—be they spiritual, sublime, or the sites of luxury vacation," a press statement says. With works on view by artists including Dan Colen, Doug Aitken, Gerhard Richter, Richard Prince, and Sterling Ruby, asking prices are hitting the seven-figure mark. The show is organised by the New York-based art consultancy, Darrow Contemporary.
These holiday shows are made to sell. New York’s Team Gallery has a summer group show wishfully titled Golden Eggs (until 5 August), which borrows its title from Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, and features artist such as Barbara Kruger and Hans Haacke. Meanwhile, Untitled gallery hosted a 2013 summer show called Jew York, featuring only Jewish artists, which, said the gallery’s owner Joel Mesler, sold well. “People kind of give dealers more leeway in terms of the consignments and the possibilities of working with different artists [in summer shows]," Mesler says. "Having Sherrie Levine, Darren Bader and Jennifer Rubell in the same room together—that only would have happened in the summer, especially on the Lower East Side."
But summer shows can sometimes defy expectations. The provocative curator Tom Eccles put together As Long As It Lasts, at Marian Goodman's New York space, in 2009. It featured works by artists including William Kentridge, Gerhard Richter, Lawrence Weiner and Tacita Dean, who took on the themes of transience and death.
"I thought: all these guest curators have beach balls or sunny beach scenes or boats, so I ran in the other direction," Eccles says. Still, it seems you can't do just anything in the summer. The New York Times review, he noted, included the line: "It's all a bit heavy for August."