Public Gallery Broadens Brutalist Beginnings
The East London gallery will expand its footprint within the Middlesex Street Estate, with the new venue opening in time for Condo London 2025. Save to My Ocula
The expansion transforms the gallery into a multistorey venue spanning five floors across two locations.
Directors Alex Harrison, Harry Dougall, and Nicole Estilo Kaiser said in a statement: ‘We were looking for an alternative to the more traditional white cube environment of our current space. This new setting inspires a different type of artistic collaboration and experimentation.’
A former textile store, the new space will retain its existing facade and features such as linoleum flooring, wooden shelving, a street-facing vitrine that will be used to display artworks.
Set in a mid-1960s Brutalist housing complex, the gallery looks out onto Petticoat Lane, London’s oldest textile and clothing market.
The East End has been a hub for artists and galleries since the 1970s. Today, with institutions like Whitechapel Gallery, Raven Row, and the Barbican nearby and contemporary galleries Kate MacGarry and Maureen Paley just a stone’s throw away, Public Gallery finds itself in good company.
Their expansion reflects a trend of growth in the neighbourhood. Last March, Emalin opened a second outpost in Shoreditch, while Nicoletti relocated to a larger space in the same area in September.
Public Gallery’s new space debuts on 16 January 2025 with 00:00:01, a group show featuring 18 artists including Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Mandy El-Sayegh, Raque Ford, and Abbas Zahedi. —[O]
Main image: Courtesy Public Gallery, London.
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