South London galleries join forces and relocate to Fitzrovia as emerging art market matures

Two galleries which minimize their tooth in Deptford, southeast London, are relocating to bigger premises within the centre of the UK capital.

Castor and Indigo+Madder are collectively taking on a 2,200 sq ft decrease floor flooring house in Fitzrovia, working separate exhibition programmes however sharing a reception, workplace, viewing room and different services—a mannequin extra continuously seen in New York.

The brand new house opens on 1 September with a bunch present throughout each galleries aptly titled, There Goes the Neighbourhood, which examines concepts of neighborhood, urbanity and what it means to be marginalised.

Describing the brand new venue as a “mini mega gallery”, Castor’s founder Andy Wicks notes the way it’s a “actually thrilling time” to be shifting into Fitzrovia, with galleries together with Office, Vitrine, Lungley and Alice Black lately opening near Edel Assanti’s new house.

He provides: “It’s nice to see an increasing number of younger galleries taking up central London areas, which within the time of the mega gallery can solely be a constructive factor.”

Wicks based Castor in 2016, initially renting free of charge a small basement in a café subsequent to Goldsmiths in New Cross. After programming 12 solo exhibitions in 12 months, Wicks relocated to Decision Approach in Deptford alongside a bunch of different artistic companies and mission areas. In 2018, after increasing the gallery’s footprint twice, he turned the mission house right into a industrial gallery, and at the moment represents seven artists.

Of the choice to maneuver with Indigo+Madder, Wicks says he had observed how, in New York, galleries “have been extra used to collaboration with the likes of Shrine and Sargents Daughters becoming a member of forces”. He provides: “After I began to search for a brand new house I used to be eager to search out one which might allow us to proceed and broaden on this joint providing, whereas not compromising on house.”

Indigo+Madder, which was set as much as facilitate extra nuanced conversations round South Asia and its diaspora and has a historical past of championing artists of color, started in 2018 with a pop-up present in London. The gallery moved to Decision Approach in 2019. As gallery director Krittika Sharma says: “Once we started on the lookout for a everlasting house in 2018, we wished one thing that was embedded in London’s rising artwork scene, and being a part of the multi-disciplinary group of areas in Deptford has been unimaginable.”

She provides: “The truth that we are able to broaden and transfer ahead with Castor, exploring a mannequin that’s each revolutionary and collaborative is thrilling. We are actually trying ahead to taking these collaborative energies to an even bigger scale in central London.”