The fashion designer Paul Smith will inaugurate a new permanent gallery space in his flagship Albemarle Street shop during London’s Frieze Week next month with an exhibition of textile art.
Fabric of Life (10 October-18 November, online until 3 January) is curated by Catherine Loewe and includes work by artists such as Andreas Eriksson, Kimathi Mafafo, Emma Talbot, Eduardo Terrazas and Anne von Freyburg. It has been produced in collaboration with the digital exhibition platform Vortic as part of its Vortic Curated series.
Smith, who started his eponymous business in the 1970s, has long been an involved collector of art and antiques—he is regularly spotted at the Decorative Fair in Battersea Park, for instance—and his eclectic finds are often shown alongside his designs in his shops.
Now, the shop at 9 Albemarle Street will contain a dedicated gallery in its basement, Paul Smith Space, with a year-round exhibition programme, led by the art consultant and curator Katie Heller, who joined in July in the newly created role of art and exhibitions manager. Heller previously worked at the Whitechapel Gallery, Frieze Art Fair and was curator for the private members clubs Soho House and the House of St Barnabas.
“While exhibitions have taken place at the Albemarle Street location for some time, it made sense to formalise this with a dedicated gallery and establish a distinct name for the art division,” Heller tells The Art Newspaper. “Especially as we are organising exhibitions and collaborations beyond Albemarle Street and across the global stores.”
Camilla Emson, The Dawn Beneath My Skin (2024). Oil, ink, bleach, plant dye and thread on recycled linen
Copyright Camilla Emson. Courtesy Camilla Emson Studios
Heller says she has been a long-term admirer of Smith’s. Last year, she visited the exhibition he curated at the Museé Picasso in Paris, Picasso Celebration: The collection in a new light and was “completely blown away by how innovative it was”. She continues: “I was also aware that for decades, Sir Paul has been a passionate advocate for design and artists. From a 20-year scholarship with the Royal Academy Schools, which has supported talents like Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, to his own extensive art collection…I was eager to be part of the Paul Smith world.”
She adds that the future revolving exhibition programme will “showcase works by a range of artists, from emerging talents to well-established names” while also building partnerships with various arts organisations and institutions, “continuing Sir Paul's long-standing tradition of supporting artists.”
Oliver Miro, the founder of Vortic, tells The Art Newspaper that he started speaking with Catherine Loewe about her idea for the textile show around a year ago: “Vortic shows always have some form of physical component, and so Catherine and I started to think of where we could hold that.” A chance conversation with Heller, with whom Vortic worked on the art programme at The House of Koko in London, led to the idea of holding the physical component of the exhibition at the new Paul Smith Space, the textile theme being neatly fitting for a fashion house.
As Miro says, textile art is on a roll at the moment, with the recent Barbican show, Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, and a textile-heavy Venice Biennale. Loewe’s selection at Paul Smith Space “focuses on the power of fabric to reveal deep psychological narratives and explore a wide range of themes that carry personal, social, political and cultural histories,” according to a press release, bringing together an international group of artists working with textiles in myriad forms—weaving, embroidery, sewing, painting and collage, as well as employing digital methods.
The works in Fabric of Life will be for sale, with prices ranging from £4,000 to £90,000. Vortic will conduct sales through its platform and handle the shipping and logistical side of putting on the exhibition—as Miro says, getting hold of art handlers during Frieze week is challenging, so Vortic’s contacts are invaluable. He adds: “Vortic was set up from a sustainability perspective, so we try not to ship internationally. Therefore, the digital component can expand the show—we can show textile works from the US, for example, without having to ship the actual works.”
Vortic will also create some VR spaces within the exhibition, in which some Paul Smith furniture and textile designs can be viewed in VR for the first time, whether on-site with VR headsets or online.