The Johannesburg-, Cape Town- and London-based Goodman Gallery is shoring up its presence in the US by hiring Denis Gardarin as a senior director and launching a seasonal gallery in East Hampton, New York. Gardarin will oversee the gallery’s presence at Frieze New York this week, as well as its corresponding popup exhibition at Adler Beatty’s 69th Street Gallery.
At the gallery in East Hampton, which opens on 15 May, Gardarin and Goodman’s US-based curator Justin Davy will organise a series of group and solo exhibitions from African artists and the diaspora including William Kentridge, David Goldblatt, Ghada Amer and emerging artists Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, Misheck Masamvu and Kudzanai Chiurai.
Gardarin has over 25 years of experience in galleries and as an art dealer, previously holding senior roles at Kasmin, White Cube and Sikkema Jenkins.
While the Hamptons has been known for years as a summer retreat for the well-heeled, last year the Covid-19 pandemic prompted a gaggle of blue chip galleries, such as Hauser & Wirth, Pace, Skarstedt and Van de Weghe Fine Art, to open popups and seasonal outposts in tony Long Island towns as a way of reaching their clients who chose to avoid New York City for the majority of 2020.