London dealer Sid Motion will close her eponymous gallery in London’s South Bermondsey district when its fall exhibition closes. She opened the gallery a decade ago.
“As I look ahead to the future, I can see that the gallery is not in the financial position to fully honor the extraordinary potential of each of my artists, and I will not compromise when it comes to supporting them in the way that they deserve,” said Motion in a statement on her website. “Closing the gallery is a positive and conscious decision. We are stopping while we are ahead, while my artists are properly serviced and the quality of the program remains high.”
In an email to ARTnews, Motion declined to comment on her future plans.
The gallery represents just five artists—Vincent Hawkins, James Lomax, Dafna Talmor, Max Wade, and Morgan Wills—but has included dozens of artists in its exhibitions, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Rana Begum, and Robert Mapplethorpe. The gallery has participated in art fairs and events including NADA Miami, Photo London, and Condo Mexico City.
Motion opened the gallery in Kings Cross in a disused betting parlor next door to a kebab shop in 2016 while also holding down a day job. She moved to South Bermondsey in 2019, and organized the annual South Bermondsey Art Trail, including open studios, exhibitions and events.
The gallery’s 85th and final exhibition, “That Which Appears,” co-curated by Motion along with Olivia Bax and James Fisher, closes on October 31 but will appear at the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield Museums, in 2028.
As George Nelson reported for ARTnews in June, on the occasion of London Gallery Weekend, “A decade on from the Brexit vote, and two years since the Labour Party retook power under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the UK economy remains shaky,” partly owing to an exodus of the super-wealthy owing to new tax rules. In the art world, some collectors and dealers are opting for Art Basel Paris over Frieze London; longstanding gallery Stephen Friedman recently closed; and Pace gave up its London gallery (as part of a larger cost-cutting campaign). On the other hand, Hauser & Wirth gallery has a 15,000-square-foot flagship in construction there.
“London needs some lobbying,” dealer Thaddaeus Ropac said at a panel discussion, insisting that reports of the city’s decline have been greatly exaggerated.
