As the art world’s favourite gallery-swapping scheme launches in London this weekend, here’s a guide to the best shows to see across the capital this month
Condo is back in London once again after a brief pandemic hiatus, having become a highlight of the London gallery calendar. Founded in 2016 by Vanessa Carlos (director of London-based Carlos/Ishikawa), Condo was envisioned as a large-scale exchange scheme encouraging the extension of gallery programmes beyond borders. Taking its name from ‘condominium’, galleries in host cities share their spaces with other galleries from across the globe, providing a rare opportunity for resource sharing and experimental exhibition-making. Condo has had many iterations over the years, with exchanges taking place in cities such as New York, São Paulo and Shanghai. This year‘s London edition sees 50 galleries taking part across 23 London spaces all over the capital, kickstarting the year with an influx of fresh creative energy.
Below, see our guide to the best shows to see at Condo London 2024, which runs from 20 January – 17 February 2024.
Maureen Paley: Studio M, hosting Sweetwater (Berlin) – Christopher Aque and Alexandre Khondji
East London powerhouse Maureen Paley hosts the cool and conceptual Berlin-based gallery Sweetwater, presenting art by Christopher Aque and Alexandre Khondji, whose work explores the boundaries between public and private. Khondji's Dams is a site-specific intervention in the space, which uses readymade aluminium floodgates to cut the room in two, altering the dynamics of the gallery space. Acque presents images from his Ebb and Flow series, photographic diptychs that feature a body of water accompanied by the body of a person. The framing is almost erotic in its voyeurism, with anonymous bodies caught unaware. The grainy, dreamlike hues of the labour-intensive gum-bichromate printing process lend an ethereal quality to the transient nature of the images, too.
Carlos/Ishikawa, hosting Chapter (NY) & Galerie Kandlhofer (Vienna) – Libasse Ka, Stella Zhong and Cheyenne Julien and Richie Culver
Carlos/Ishikawa presents works by Libasse Ka, which will mark his first major solo exhibition and first presentation in the UK. Inspired by the geometric figures of Mondrian and Ghent painter Mario de Brabandere, Ka’s abstract paintings have a refreshing playfulness, experimenting with colour and form. New York-based gallery Chapter will display the work of Cheyenne Julien and Stella Zhong. Zhong’s paintings are charged with existential uncertainty, comprised of spheres occupying voids of limitless potential; the obscurity and scale of the works force us to shift perspective towards the minute. Julien’s work portrays intimate subjects inspired by her personal relationships, highlighting the interdependencies of bodies and their contexts, with highly saturated and eerily dreamlike paintings. Vienna-based Galerie Kandlhofer showcases the work of Richie Culver, a multidisciplinary artist exploring gender, class and the alienating impact of technology on our lived experience, well-known for the humorous lyricism of his canvas-based text works, which offer poignant social critique. Culver will also be presenting a performance piece Exit Strategy which will run throughout the opening weekend.
Ginny on Frederick, hosting Lomex (NYC) – hello dust! – Francesca Dolor and David Flaugher
Tucked away behind Smithfield Market is one of London’s hidden gems, Ginny on Frederick. Having moved down the street from their iconic sandwich shop and into their new larger garage space late in 2023 – both innovative uses of unassuming spaces – their programming continues to delight. This is the gallery’s first year participating in Condo, and they are hosting Lomex, another gallery with a cult following from across the pond. hello dust! brings together the works of Francesca Dolor and David Flaugher, who both share an interest in navigating personal landscapes. Dolor’s large-scale, psychedelic paintings are altar-like and ooze subconscious emotion, meanwhile, Flaugher’s uncanny interiors have a meditative quality about them. Rendered without real-world sources, they bring into frame a post-human environment plagued by unknown forces.
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Project Native Informant, hosting Gianni Manhattan (Vienna) and P21 (Seoul) – Heroes – Taewon Ahn and Ibrahim Meïté Sikely
Located adjacent to Herald Street, Bethnal Green’s gallery hotspot, Project Native Informant has been excelling in programming that examines our relationship with internet culture, exhibiting the work of artists such as Sophia Al-Maria, Juliana Huxtable and the pioneering collective DIS. Hosting both Gianni Manhattan and P21, the joint exhibition Heroes brings together the work of Ibrahim Meïté Sikely and Taewon Ahn, who both share an interest in the transformative potential of digital worlds. The show’s title makes reference to the archetypal video game characters, which are the source of inspiration for Sikely’s dynamic tableau. Ahn’s practice also draws inspiration from a range of digital media, with works – featuring his cat Hiro contorted and misshapen – reminiscent of early video game graphics. Also on display in Project Native Informant’s other unit is a solo show by Michael Andrew Page titled Claustrum. The exhibition features work from his Bivvy series, which uses a complex set of digital and analogue processes to transform humble tents into vivid kaleidoscopic paintings.
Soft Opening, hosting LambdaLambdaLambda (Prishtina) – Portals – Heinz Frank, Sharona Franklin, Vedran Kopljar, Hanne Lippard, Hunter Longe, Emile Rubino, Dardan Zhegrova
Bringing the youthful spirit of Kosovo to Hackney, LambdaLambdaLambda gallery champions artists from Kosovo and the Balkans. Portals is a group exhibition that explores openings in various forms, from the crevices of Hunter Longe’s wall-based relics, teasing connections to other worlds, to Emile Rubino’s playful photography which transforms the familiar domesticity of the humble washing machine. Honourable mentions also to Sharona Franklin’s hypnotic clock made of spoons. Hanne Lippard’s mirrors also see us stuck within the loop of their digital curses. Portals invites us to peer inside the void, presenting works that allow us to see from alternative perspectives.
Emalin, hosting Galerie Neu (Berlin) - >anticorpo< - Megan Plunkett and Manfred Pernice
Emalin and Galerie Neu present a collection of works by Megan Plunkett alongside new sculptures by Manfred Pernice. Both Plunkett and Pernice share an affinity for transforming the everyday into something spectacular. Plunkett’s work is uncanny, exploring the medium of photography and its potential to create moments of hyperreality, while Pernice’s architectural sculptures elevate the mundane through his playful construction of enigmatic monuments. Also worth seeing is the inaugural exhibition 118 ½ at Emalin’s new location at The Clerk’s House in Shoreditch, down the street from their Holywell Lane location. The new gallery building is believed to have been a former watchhouse from which an invigilator looked out for body snatchers during the turmoil of 18th and 19th-century east London. Artists featured in the show engage with questions of domesticity and its politics, with work by the likes of Alvaro Barrington, Sung Tieu and Marina Xenofontos. 118 ½ continues until March 16.
Arcadia Missa, hosting Bridget Donoghue (NYC) & High Art (Paris) – Foyer – John Russell
The ominous press release for Foyer warns of angels, the dead and the living. Visitors may find themselves in purgatory as Russell humorously transforms Arcadia Missa’s Mayfair space with this site-specific intervention. The new piece is reminiscent of his earlier work, Well, a large-scale vinyl print of lava spewing through floorboards, installed seamlessly at Bridget Donoghue’s NY gallery in 2021. This is a piece which must be experienced in person to truly appreciate.
Condo London 2024 runs from 20 January – 17 February 2024. During opening weekend (January 20 – 21), all galleries will be open on both Saturday and Sunday, from 12 – 6pm.
