[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2187811683-e1781118726747.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note:<\/strong>\u00a0This story originally appeared in\u00a0On Balance,\u00a0<\/em>the ARTnews\u00a0newsletter about the art market and beyond.\u00a0Sign up here<\/em>\u00a0to receive it every Wednesday.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tLast Thursday, in a basement at No. 9 Cork Street in Mayfair, mega-dealer Thaddaeus Ropac was on hand to launch the 2026 edition of London Gallery Weekend (LGW). The occasion was a panel discussion with Pale Horse Gallery cofounder Emma Hodgson and Kate MacGarry, who runs an eponymous space in Shoreditch. The on-the-nose title: \u201cHow is London\u2019s contemporary commercial gallery scene thriving in times of flux?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe flux is real. Over the weekend, news that Pace Gallery\u2014which operates eight locations worldwide\u2014had cut 50 staff members and dropped 50 artists was ringing in everyone\u2019s ears. Today, the Financial Times<\/em> reported that the mega-gallery is also planning to downsize its London operation.<\/p>\n \n\tA 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. New tax rules instituted last year have led many of the ultra-wealthy to leave London; many top collectors appear to have chosen Art Basel Paris over recent editions of Frieze London; and, to top it off, stalwart gallery Stephen Friedman closed and entered insolvency proceedings earlier this year. These headlines, perhaps unfairly, have dominated recent discourse about the city\u2019s art scene.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cLondon needs some lobbying,\u201d Ropac said at Thursday\u2019s panel, whose subterranean setting gave the discussion the feel of a resistance movement gathering. \u201cI\u2019m always surprised by how persistent the narrative of London\u2019s decline remains. It seems to be a story people enjoy repeating, often regardless of the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhen one journalist mentioned that Pace CEO Marc Glimcher said last week that the \u201ccurrent gallery model isn\u2019t only broken, it\u2019s unfixable,\u201d Ropac raised his eyebrows and smiled wryly. He opened his sixth international gallery in Milan at the end of last year\u2014there was no need to ask if he disagreed with Glimcher. Hauser & Wirth\u2019s new, 15,000-square-foot flagship gallery in Mayfair, currently under construction, also appears to counter Glimcher\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n \n\tSarah Rustin, Ropac\u2019s global senior director, and Jeremy Epstein, a director at London\u2019s Edel Assanti gallery, have taken up the task of lobbying for London. The pair launched LGW in 2021, and this year signed up 120 galleries across the city, including nine first-timers and several with new or expanded spaces. There were also more than 80 free public events, from talks and workshops to book signings and parties. The galleries were connected through a series of routes led by curators and notable arts figures, including Lauren Cuthbertson, a principal dancer with London\u2019s Royal Ballet, and memoirist Alice Hattrick. Each year, LGW strives to distill the city\u2019s sprawling gallery scene into easily traversable sections, and in turn increase footfall outside of Mayfair, where the majority of contemporary spaces are located. \u201cWe\u2019re encouraging people to visit parts of the city they might not otherwise explore,\u201d Epstein said.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cLGW has been an incredible opportunity to connect with other curators in London, nationally and internationally,\u201d one of the visiting curators, Gaynor Seville, who is creative director at the Whitaker Museum in Lancashire, told ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cGetting to meet so many peers, visit so many galleries, and meet such a varied mix of artists over a short time period is rare and valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRustin told me that roughly 50,000 people attend the weekend each year, with many flying in from the US, Europe, and further afield. \u201cBoosting engagement is one of the core pillars of LGW,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \n\tTo describe London\u2019s gallery scene as \u201cthriving,\u201d as the panel\u2019s title suggested, seems a stretch. (Is the gallery scene booming anywhere right now?) As Hodgson, who only launched Pale Horse Gallery last year, attested, soaring business rates, rent, and energy bills are serious obstacles\u2014not to mention collectors tightening their purse strings on account of geopolitical and economic uncertainty. One solution, she told the audience, was for gallerists to be braver in their choice of artists and to raise the quality of programming and curation. That\u2019s not a surefire path to success, however. \u201cThe market has softened and collectors are taking fewer risks,\u201d Hodgson said. \u201cFor emerging galleries and the artists they represent, the impact has been particularly acute.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs seen at marquee sales in New York and London over the past few months, collectors are increasingly drawn to safer, more household names. So-called \u201cwet paint\u201d artists are out of fashion at auction.<\/p>\n \n\tRustin and Epstein\u2014who recently opened an intimate second space in London for Edel Assanti\u2014were under no illusions. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to sugarcoat anything,\u201d Rustin told me. \u201cWe don\u2019t shy away from discussing the challenges; there are headwinds. A core aim of LGW is to draw deserved closer attention to the evolving make-up of the very diverse gallery sector across the city.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tNeither is paid to organize the weekend, yet both devote the time and energy to make sure it runs smoothly. The metrics LGW uses to gauge success are footfall, gallery sales, and the participation of acquisition funds\u2014all of which are growing year on year. For example, the Arts Council bought three works by Gray Wielebinski from Nicoletti Gallery and another by Delaine Le Bas from Maureen Paley with funds donated by a group of collectors under 40. The Government Art Collection also acquired several works, including one by Ravelle Pillay from Goodman Gallery. \u201cLGW provided the perfect context for Pillay\u2019s first London gallery show following an exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery and a commission by the National Portrait Gallery,\u201d Jo Stella-Sawicka, Goodman Gallery\u2019s director, told me.<\/p>\n \n\tThe spirit of cooperation among London\u2019s galleries is harder to quantify, but there are signs of a growing support network. In some gallery districts outside the city center, groups of dealers reportedly pooled resources to cover the participation costs for a single gallery, allowing the wider area to benefit from the increased footfall generated by the weekend. This year\u2019s sign-up fee started at \u00a3550 ($737), rising to \u00a33,630 ($4,862) for galleries with more than 15 staff members. Larger galleries were also encouraged to make anonymous contributions to a central fund that helped support LGW\u2019s running costs and subsidize participation across the network.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cVisitor numbers were very high over the weekend,\u201d said Will Hainsworth, a cofounder of Palmer Gallery in Paddington. \u201cOn Friday we launched Lisson Grove Galleries, a collaborative initiative with the other galleries in the area. We had a day of staggered events programmed across the five spaces. Turnout from the London art scene, national curators, and the local community was very strong.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHainsworth added that he didn\u2019t meet many new collectors, noting that \u201cthe idea that LGW functions like a city-wide art fair isn\u2019t quite correct.\u201d The best opportunities for sales through LGW, he said, are the acquisition opportunities from the Government Art Collection and the Arts Council.<\/p>\n \n\tHector Vidal, the founder of Untitled Gallery who is building what he calls \u201ca new operating system for the art world\u201d through a platform called Art Circles, told me he thinks LGW does actually \u201cfunction like an art fair.\u201d \u201cLGW is wall-to-wall, shoulder-to-shoulder, everyone competing for the same collectors and the same press,\u201d he said. \u201cThe galleries that win aren\u2019t necessarily selling the most during the weekend\u2014they\u2019re winning brand equity. LGW brings the community together, but the question of whether it converts into serious sales is still open.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTimothy Taylor, who has run his eponymous gallery in Mayfair for the past three decades and recently closed his New York Space, told me LGW \u201chas become a defining moment in London.\u201d As part of the event, he opened a show by France-based Jiab Prachakul.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIts greatest strength lies in the collaborative spirit and the meaningful opportunities it creates to engage with new and wider audiences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/london-gallery-weekend-recap-1234788737\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2187811683-e1781118726747.jpg?w=1024″] Editor\u2019s Note:\u00a0This story originally appeared in\u00a0On Balance,\u00a0the ARTnews\u00a0newsletter about the art market and beyond.\u00a0Sign up here\u00a0to receive it every Wednesday. Last Thursday, in a basement at No. 9 Cork Street in Mayfair, mega-dealer Thaddaeus Ropac was on hand to launch the 2026 edition of London Gallery Weekend (LGW). The occasion was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1983695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1983695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1983695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1983695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1983695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}