Project Native Informant announced plans to close on Friday, becoming the latest gallery to close, ending a 12-year run at one of London’s most popular commercial art spaces.
“The decision to close was not taken lightly,” founder Stephan Tanbin Sastrawidjaja wrote in a statement. “The current global economic, political and social climate has created an extremely unstable and unsustainable environment for a gallery like ours. In addition, personal factors also contributed to this decision.”
Its final show appears to be a solo show by Sean Steadman, closing in the summer.
The gallery opened in 2013 in a garage in the city’s Mayfair district and later moved to the East End. In its early days, Project Native Informant became known as a unique art-commerce space that spoke to the Internet and even leveraged aspects of it to create exhibitions for artists such as Juliana Huxtable, DIS, and GCC.
Project Native Informant has also hosted exhibitions for renowned artists such as Ned Vena, Loretta Fahrenholz, Andrew Norman Wilson, Harumi Yamaguchi, Georgie Nettell and Shu Lea Cheang.
Its closure appears to be part of a wave of closures that have hit New York hard so far. Galleries closing in the city include Clearing, Blum, Tilton and others.
But it’s clear that the wave of closures is spreading beyond New York — not only in the United States, where galleries such as the Louvre in Los Angeles and Altman Siegel in San Francisco have announced plans to cease operations, but also in Europe, where Switzerland’s Galerie Francesca Pia said it will close after more than 35 years.
Like many galleries, Project Native Informant is a frequent presence at blue-chip art fairs such as Art Basel and Frieze.
“We are deeply proud of our entire body of work and want our presence to be felt,” Sastra Wijaja wrote.
