London’s Halsden High Street gallery heads to Mayfair to host pop-up shop

Jonny Tanna, the founder of Halsden High Street in north-west London, doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would open a gallery in Mayfair, the upscale neighborhood for the world’s wealthiest and blue-chip investors. Tucked between a chicken shop and a minicab office, Harlesden High Street is known as one of the most unpretentious, sincere and exciting galleries in the British capital. The rules there are simple: it only shows artists of color. It’s a space that feels lived in, loved, and deeply local. So when word spread that Harlesden High Street was moving into Mayfair during Frieze Art Week, Tanna was sold out.

He didn’t.

The Halsden High Street, Mayfair project is more of an open pop-up store than a relocation. On Monday, galleries in Düsseldorf and Berlin setare A new London store will be opened on Borden Street to host the Forces of Nature exhibition, created in partnership with Harlesden and cultural strategist Trinidad Fombella.

“This is not about suddenly becoming a Mayfair gallery,” Tana told me over the phone. “It’s about keeping the quality high and not getting caught up in the business cycle. We only do a few sales shows a year, so it gives me the opportunity to reach people without affecting the schedule.”

“Force of Nature” pairs two London-based artists, Abbas Zahedi and Jamiu Agboke, who work on conceptual installations and atmospheric paintings respectively. Zahedi’s 11&9 is a filing cabinet turned archive filled with “biographical records” that visitors can exchange for personal items—a meditation on bureaucracy, immigration, and memory. Abok’s reflective landscapes, painted on aluminum and copper, float between Lagos and the English countryside, both familiar and dreamlike.

Tana first met Arbok at the Royal Drawing School. “He painted like a middle-class, middle-aged white man,” Tana said with a laugh. “He also carried himself like one – always wearing a suit jacket, very dapper.” Zahedi, meanwhile, was an old friend from the neighborhood and Tana “always wanted to work with him.”

While the show was filled with big talk about “rebalancing” and “territorial claims,” ​​what really drives Tana is something more immediate: community. His programming has always been about making art accessible – showcasing work that locals feel belongs to them, rather than the work of others.

“If we start showing a bunch of rich white kids,” he said in an interview with The New York Times last year. Face“It’s going to be strange to people around here.”

Tanna plans to hold a few shows a year at Setareh’s space as a touring extension of his home base. The model is just the latest reimagining of how small galleries can survive. Harlesden could branch out into the more commercial areas of Mayfair, while respected European gallery Setareh could expand into London while absorbing some of the costs and planning pressures.

“When you’re stuck doing commercials constantly,” he said, “your quality goes down and you end up owing yourself inventory. I never wanted that.”