Mayfair Art Weekend is an annual celebration of London’s internationally renowned gallery district, bringing together Mayfair’s leading galleries for a weekend showcasing the best in contemporary art. 30 of the UK’s leading galleries will present modern and contemporary painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media, installation, performance, talks and events, all completely free, across one weekend in June.
Taking place from Friday 24th – Sunday 26th June 2022, visitors can expect to see a diverse range of artists and exhibitions staged by regular favourites including the Hauser & Wirth, BASTIAN, Royal Academy of Arts and Richard Saltoun Gallery, with galleries participating for the first time in 2022 to include Pace, No. 9 Cork Street | Frieze, Carl Kostyál and Sapling.
The weekend will kick off with the popular Friday night Gallery HOP! on 24th June from 6-8 pm, with a special late-night viewing of all participating galleries. Following which Saturday and Sunday will be packed with free talks, tours, performances and family activities.
Mayfair Art Weekend’s extended programme also includes the popular Mayfair Sculpture Trail, a Mayfair Art Weekend collaboration with Art in Mayfair, a free six-week outdoor sculpture trail, running from 20 June – 31 July. The Mayfair Sculpture Trail features an interactive outdoor exhibition of temporary sculptures presented by galleries participating in Mayfair Art Weekend, alongside permanent sculptures and public art situated on the iconic streets of Mayfair. Now in its third year, the Mayfair Sculpture Trail will include works by Kojo Marfo (presented by JD Malat Gallery), David Breuer-Weil (presented by E&R Cyzer), Andy Denzler and Lee Gil Rae (presented by Opera Gallery), Michael Speller (presented by Clarendon Fine Art), and Maurice Blik (presented by Bowman Sculpture). Spotlighted are favourite permanent installations around Mayfair from Banksy, Henry Moore, Elisabeth Frink, Antony Gormley, and a new installation of sculpture by Gill Berelowitz at 45 Park Lane. The full list of participating artists and a trail map for the 2022 Mayfair Sculpture Trail will be revealed in early June.
Mayfair Galleries participating in Mayfair Art Weekend for the first time in 2022 include:
- Pace: leading contemporary gallery who represents some of the most significant artists and estates of the 20th and 21st centuries
- No. 9 Cork Street: Frieze’s first permanent exhibition space for international galleries
- Sapling: an exhibition space concerned with exploring the relationship between art and nature, showcasing both emerging and established artists alongside an experimental events program
- Carl Kostyál: located on Savile Row with another exhibition space in Stockholm
- James Hyman Gallery: specialises in modern British art and photography
- The Koppel Project: this London arts charity has a new exhibition space on New Bond Street, presenting the work of early and mid-career artists and curators.
Exhibitions to look out for during Mayfair Art Weekend 2022 include:
Emil Nolde: Anatomy of Light and Water at BASTIAN, showcasing around 15 seascapes on paper that have never been exhibited in London;
Wolf Vostell: Destruction is Life at Cardi Gallery, which examines the many facets underpinning Vostell’s oeuvre with a selection of videos, paintings, sculptures and installations from 1967-1998;
John Swannell: Forty Years On at Clarendon Fine Art, displays a selection of photographs of notable figures previously published in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar by the photographer who has been at the forefront of British photography for four decades;
Marinella Senatore: Afterglow at Mazzoleni is a unique project, conceived on both a personal and social level with the installation of site-specific light sculptures dotted across the city;
Billy Apple®: Rainbows 1965 at The Mayor Gallery, a re-staging of Apple’s ground-breaking solo exhibition first shown at Bianchini Gallery in New York in 1965, which was credited with being one of the first to treat electric light as a new sculptural medium. Taking the rainbow as its central motif the show proved Apple’s attraction to new products and advancing technologies, plus his fascination for the science of colour and light.
Browse & Darby celebrates with the exhibition 45 Years on Cork Street, including many of the artists they have dealt with over the years such as Elizabeth Blackadder, Edgar Degas, Lucian Freud, Harold Gilman, Gwen John, William Nicholson, Walter Richard Sickert, Matthew Smith and Euan Uglow amongst others.
Hauser & Wirth will be hosting two exhibitions, one by Larry Bell, known foremost for his refined surface treatment of glass and explorations of light, reflection and shadow, who presents a selection of brand-new sculptures; plus previously unseen works by Luchita Hurtado that centres on the Venezuelan painter’s pursuit of the otherworldly.
Waddington Custot is also presenting two exhibitions, firstly Hans Hartung: Painter • Photographer, which illuminates the importance of photography to the development of the artist’s work who is primarily known for his abstract paintings. Approximately 30,000 photographic negatives are held by the Hartung-Bergman Foundation and yet his photographs have never been exhibited in London; it will also be the first time some of them have ever been publicly exhibited.
Secondly, Peter Blake: Under Milk Wood is being shown by Waddington Custot in a pop-up exhibition space opposite the main gallery at 22 Cork Street. A series of over 150 watercolours, collages and drawings by Blake illustrating Dylan Thomas‘s landmark 1953 ‘play for voices’ has never before been shown outside of Wales, the exhibition also debuts a number of new pieces as Blake has continued to work on the series that will coincide with his 90th birthday.
Coinciding with the show on Cork Street, 45 Park Lane are thrilled to host a solo exhibition of Sir Peter Blake, featuring his most recent collage series, Joseph Cornell’s Holiday, which imagines the late American artist, one of Blake’s heroes, travelling to different global locations.
Other participating galleries include David Zwirner, D Contemporary, E & R Cyzer, Grosvenor Chapel, Holtermann Fine Art, Illuminate Productions, JD Malat Gallery, John Martin Gallery, Opera Gallery, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Robilant+Voena and Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair.
Mayfair Art Weekend will coincide with the first week of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2022 (21 June – 21 August) and the RA Schools Summer Show (17 June – 3 July).
The full programme of live events ranging from talks, tours, workshops, performances and family-friendly activities, will be announced on the Mayfair Art Weekend website in June, plus the complete list of artworks for Mayfair Sculpture Trail.
