The London Gallery Weekend (LGW) started early on June 4 with a salon-style discussion between three dealers (with president Melanie Gerlis) at very different levels of the market: Thaddaeus Ropac, Kate MacGarry and Emma Hodgson, founder of Pale Horse, the youngest gallery participating in this year’s LGW edition. London is second only to New York as an art market, the panel emphasized, with the UK accounting for 18 percent of the global art market, according to a report by Art Basel & UBS. But its strength is not only commercial: it is also defined by the concentration of institutions, and more importantly, international artists. As Ropac puts it, “The artworld can only succeed through its artists.”
Touching on the general post-Brexit debate, Ropac, who holds posts in London and Paris, noted that the latter city is gaining strength without London losing ground, and that “this competition is healthy and good.” London, he added, has perhaps been too strong for a long time, while Paris still lacks international artists. Veteran London dealer Kate MacGarry, who has been based in East London since the 2000s, also emphasized how much of the city’s growth is linked to the presence of artists’ centers and local creative initiatives.
The Pale Horse, which opened last year with a contemporary program focusing on emerging and foreign artists not often exhibited in London, is part of a new wave of small galleries opening in the city. It is also among nine LGW participants for the first time, a group that includes DES BAINS, established in 2022 and moving from East London to Fitzrovia in 2023; The General Assembly, which opened in 2023 on Saint George Street in Mayfair; Matt Carey-Williams, opened in 2024 at Porchester Place near Lisson Grove by former executive director at Victoria Miro, Gagosian, White Cube and Haunch of Venison; NORITO, which has been in Beak Street, Soho, since 2024; the piloto pardo, launched next to the Barbican in 2021; and TINA, a curator-led space that opened in 2024 on Wardour Street in Soho. Hodgson said one of the biggest challenges for shows like his remains the city, especially transport and logistics, which have become more expensive after Brexit.
Migration of wealth has also been a major problem. Ropac admitted that in recent years, and especially in the last few months, collectors and wealthy residents have been moving elsewhere, and Milan is now a major destination close to Dubai and Australia. But many remain connected to London as a place to see art.
While all the gallerists agreed that physical spaces are still needed to build trust with artists, they also agreed to reevaluate the role of art fairs as of late. Towards the end of the interview, Ropac shared his thoughts on how exhibitions have, in some ways, surpassed the role of the gallery in recent years. Instead, he suggested that art exhibitions should be places of information and communication, but the main goal should be to bring people back to the gallery, to get them to follow the program and deepen their engagement with the artists. Initiatives like London Gallery Weekend help many dealers work towards that goal, while also creating an important space for discussion and community across galleries, where participants can consult with each other rather than compete.
The wide diversity across cultures, narratives, media and price categories at this year’s LGW certainly reaffirmed London’s centrality, as it exposed the continuing lack of communication between commercial and institutional sectors. Alignment, as discussed during the panel, could do more to build momentum in the city’s arts calendar. Ropac pointed to the success of Berlin Gallery Weekend’s collectors’ dinners and wider social infrastructure, while noting that London Gallery Weekend remains UK-focused. Paris, which hosted its own gallery weekend last week, is showing the same energy. These events are important for strengthening local art scenes, but they are not yet interactive and local, which is not appropriate for scenes that are trying to compete for the already hard-to-reach attention of Old World collectors and art professionals.
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