The second edition of Condo opens this weekend (until 11 February) with 15 London galleries hosting 36 of their international contemporaries. Galleries, from as far away as Shanghai and Guatemala City, will bring works by their artists and put on exhibitions in London spaces—all for a fraction of the price of showing at an international fair. “I was particularly interested in proposing Condo as one alternative model because I feel that the current structure galleries are expected to operate in favours big galleries that act as corporations,” says Vanessa Carlos, the director of London’s Carlos/Ishikawa gallery who started Condo last year.
The London-wide exhibition has grown with the addition of seven more host spaces, including a number of more established galleries such as Sadie Coles HQ, Maureen Paley and Greengrassi. “Cornelia Grassi came last year and said she’d love to take part in the following year, which really surprised me. Before then it hadn’t occurred to me to invite established galleries,” Carlos says.
“Condo is still largely focused on younger galleries because as a young gallery myself it felt natural to approach my friends and peers, and because undoubtedly younger galleries could use more support than established ones as they obviously are under more strain financially.”
Five shows to visit at Condo
Greengrassi hosting Proyectos Ultravioleta (Guatemala City)
“There are some great curated collaborations this year,” Carlos says, and among them is Guatemala’s Proyectos Ultravioleta showing at Greengrassi. This group show titled These Architectures We Make will look at “how our energy for building things often surpasses our energy for caretaking”, according to a press statement. Among the six artists on show will be the Guatemalan artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa—who recently had a solo exhibition at Gasworks featuring a giant glowing finger—as well as colourful geometric textiles by the Chilean artist Felipe Mujica complemented by Elizabeth Wild’s magazine collages.
Chewday’s hosting Galerie Max Mayer (Düsseldorf)
This small gallery, around the corner from Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery, is run by the curator Tobias Czudej, who has previously oraganised shows for Pace. Chewday’s will host Düsseldorf’s Galerie Max Mayer, run by the son of Hans Mayer—founder of the prestigious German gallery of the same name. Suitably following this theme, the young gallery has organised a group show spanning generations: from the 82-year-old Belgian artist Jef Geys to the young German duo Henning Fehr and Philipp Rühr. The show also includes Nicolás Guagnini, whose slide projection The Middle Class Goes To Heaven lends its title to the exhibition. Expect pressed flowers, images of brutalist architecture and an exploration of the Wal-Mart funded Crystal Bridges Museum.
Union Pacific hosting Misako & Rosen (Tokyo) and Jan Kaps (Cologne)
Returning to London is one of Misako & Rosen’s more colourful artists, Ken Kagami, who was one of the hits of 2015’s Frieze art fair with his rapid-response drawings of visitor’s genitalia based on their first name (and external appearance). Kagami will be showing Comedy Klein (Chucky) (2016), mixing the spirit of Yves Klein’s anthropometries with the creepy doll of the Chucky horror movies. The Tokyo gallery will also be exhibiting Motoyuki Daifu’s photographs. Works by Gene Beery and Violet Dennison from Cologne’s Jan Kaps gallery, will be joined by a huge blow-up snowman by Union Pacific’s Jan Kiefer and surreal paintings by the Swiss artist Yoan Mudry.
The Sunday Painter hosting Jaqueline Martins (São Paulo), Seventeen (New York/London) and Stereo (Warsaw)
The Amsterdam-based, Brazilian artist Adriano Amaral—whose quiet but powerful interventions and minimal sculptures proved to be one of the lasting memories from the Royal College of Arts’ sculpture degree show in 2014—returns to his former home city with Jaqueline Martins. Amaral, who is showing work made from modified UV lamps, will be joined by the US artist Daniel de Paula; The Sunday Painter’s Emma Hart; Seventeen’s Justin Fitzpatrick; and Stereo’s Wojciech Bąkowski. In terms of materials, this promises to be one of the most diverse shows of the lot, including ceramics (Hart), a table and paintings (Fitzpatrick), drawings (Bąkowski) as well as lottery tickets and scratch-cards (de Paula).
Carlos/Ishikawa hosting Tommy Simoens (Antwerp) and ShanghART (Shanghai)
“In our case, the idea for the collaboration came from the artists themselves which was really nice,” Carlos says. The gallery will be showing work by the Colombian-born Oscar Murillo, one of their most successful artists, who is now also represented by David Zwirner. Murillo, who will have a major show at Paris’s Jeu de Paume in June, returns to the gallery that started showing his work while he was still studying for his MA. He will be exhibiting works alongside the Japanese artist Yutaka Sone from Antwerp’s Tommy Simoens gallery and the Chinese artist Ouyang Chun who is showing with Shanghai’s ShanghART