In October 2012, David Zwirner opened in London.

 

The inaugural exhibition presented new paintings by Luc Tuymans. This was the Belgian artist’s first show in London since his 2004 retrospective at the Tate Modern. (In 1994, Tuymans had his US debut exhibition at David Zwirner’s first gallery in New York’s SoHo neighborhood.) In January 2013, the gallery featured an exhibition of works by American artist, Fred Sandback (1943 – 2003) and the group show, Days in Lieu in THE UPPER ROOM, followed by the exhibition, Adel Abdessemed: Le Vase abominable, which presented a group of new works by the Paris-based artist who had a solo show at Centre Pompidou in Fall 2012. The recent exhibition by Marcel Dzama featured new films, sculptures, dioramas, collages, and drawings. Forthcoming shows will be by Christopher Williams, who will be the subject of a major show at the Museum of Modern Art in Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago beginning in 2014, and Donald Judd, one of the most significant American artists of the post-war period.

 

David Zwirner’s first European location is an 18th-century Georgian townhouse in the heart of Mayfair, the city’s historic fine arts neighborhood. The gallery is located on Grafton Street near Berkeley Square just a few doors down from Dover Street Market. (Dover Street becomes Grafton Street at the top of Hay Hill.) The new address in the center of the European art world comes with an illustrious history, having been home to several prominent residents, including Lord Robert Cecil, the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, who was twice Prime Minister of Britain (1885-1892 and 1895-1902). In 1909, Helena Rubinstein opened her first spa and beauty clinic at the new address, selling products by her eponymous luxury cosmetics brand until 1958. Most recently, the site housed a private bank. After a renovation overseen by architect Annabelle Selldorf of Selldorf Architects, the building has now opened up to almost 10,000 square feet throughout five floors, with main exhibition spaces on three levels. Selldorf’s transformation of the quintessential London townhouse remains faithful to the aesthetics of the gallery’s existing spaces.

 

The gallery is under the direction of Angela Choon, a director at David Zwirner since 1994 and a partner since 2004.

 

Above left: Luc Tuymans during the installation of his exhibition
Above right: Installation view in the gallery’s stair of Untitled (Four-part Vertical Construction) by Fred Sandback