NEW ART FAIR ECHO SOHO, FOCUSING ON WOMEN-LED GALLERIES, WILL DEBUT DURING FRIEZE LONDON 2025
This October, Echo Soho, a new art fair spotlighting women-led galleries will be launched. Founded by India Rose James of Soho Revue, the fair has been designed to support underrepresented artists and emerging galleries. The participating galleries will receive support such as on-site art handling, booth photography, shared VIP lists, and PR services. Echo Soho follows a number of alternative art fairs that have been cropping up in recent years, including Minor Attractions, Basel Social Club, and Esther. The name of the fair draws on the mythological character Echo, which links to the fair’s mission to amplify overlooked voices. Alongside the fair there will be a program of workshops, curatorial walkthroughs, and performances. There will also be a special presentation by the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA). Titled Resonant Space: Curating Echoes, the presentation will also support the launch of AWITA’s inaugural research scholarship. The fair will also award the Soho House prize, chosen by Kate Bryan and Jack Lazenby, Soho House’s global director of art and the art collection manager respectively. In an interview, James shared, “I have been wanting to start an art fair for years, and after being encouraged by friends in the industry and fellow female-led galleries, I decided to take the plunge. Having run Soho Revue since 2019, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to build and push your gallery and yourself onto an art fair stage.”
Portrait of India Rose James
BAYEUX TAPESTRY TO RETURN TO UK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 900 YEARS
The Bayeux Tapestry will be loaned to the British Museum next year, the first time the tapestry has been in the UK in over 900 years. Depicting the Norman invasion of 1066, the tapestry measures 230 feet in length and features 58 scenes, 626 characters, and 202 horses. The tapestry will go on view in August 2026 and is the result of an agreement between British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron first announced plans to loan tapestry in 2018, predicting that the piece would be sent in 2022; however, the tapestry was deemed too fragile for transport in 2021, and the loan was delayed. In exchange for the tapestry, the British Museum is sending artefacts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the 12th-century Lewis chess pieces to institutions in Normandy, France. The Bayeux Tapestry is considered one of the great works of the Romanesque style and has inspired a number of contemporary artists, including Britta Marakatt-Labba who used a similar format for her tapestry Historjá. Nicolas Cullinan, the director of the British Museum, shared in a statement, “this is exactly the kind of international partnership that I want us to champion and take part in: sharing the best of our collection as widely as possible—and in return displaying global treasures of the world never seen in London before to a global audience.”
The Bayeux Tapestry
A BLOCKBUSTER GERHARD RICHTER RETROSPECTIVE, CO-ORGANISED BY NICHOLAS SEROTA, IS COMING TO PARIS
A retrospective of Gerhard Richter will be opening this October at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, co-curated by Nicholas Serota, the former director of Tate. The exhibition will feature 270 works spanning from 1962 to 2022; there will be an array of mediums presented, including paintings, pencil and ink drawings, watercolours, and overpainted photographs. Key pieces from the Fondation’s collection include Gudrun(1987), Wald [Forest] (1990) and 4900 Farben [4900 colours]. The exhibition is ordered chronologically, starting with works dated from 1962 to 1970 in a section titled “Painting from Photographs: Photography as a Source of Imagery.” The next room showcases works executed for the 1972 Venice Biennale, followed by the “Exploring Abstraction” and “Sombre Reflections” sections. Sombre Reflections will include October 18, 1977, a series that has been described by the MoMA as evoking “fragments from the lives and deaths of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group”. The final part of the exhibition (2009-2023) notes the years during which Richter abandoned painting and the time he spent on glass works and digitally generated Strip images. Co-curating the show with Serota is Dieter Schwarz, the director of the Kunstmuseum Winterthur from 1990-2017. On Richter, Serota said, “I did a show at the Whitechapel in 1979, and the more I watched and learned, the more I studied the processes and the outcomes, the more impressive his work is. I’m astounded by the thoroughness with which he investigates every problem that he tackles, and also the number of levels of meaning in the work.”
Gerhard Richter, Gudrun, 1987
AT 25, THE LAMBERT COLLECTION IN AVIGNON IS MORE AMBITIOUS AND INCLUSIVE THAN EVER
The Lambert Collection have opened a new exhibition, Even the Suns are Drunk, presenting both classical and contemporary works that highlight the relationship between the local residents of Avignon and the mistral. The exhibition’s title has been drawn from Albert Camus’ The Posterity of the Sun, co-written with poet René Char. Works such as Susanna Fritscher’s Flügel Klingen (2017) and Žilvinas Kempinas’ Fountains (2011). Alongside this, an exhibition titled A Love Song is opening, featuring works selected from the Lambert Collection by artist Jean-Michel Othoniel. Among these is a rare Sol LeWitt painting, which will be shown for the first time for the occasion. This summer also marks the Lambert Collection’s 25th anniversary, the collection first established by art dealer Yvon Lambert. In 1966, Lambert opened a gallery in Paris where he focused on American artists whose practices centred around Minimalism and Conceptualism. The Lambert Collection has collaborated with the Musée des Civilisations d’Europe et de la Méditerranée (Mucem) in Marseilles, bringing together contemporary art and objects from Mucem’s art collections. There are also plans for the collection to open an art centre in Avignon’s public nursing home; artists such as Charly Aubry and dancer and choreographer Thierry Thieû will be invited on residencies to work with the elderly residents.
Žilvinas Kempinas, Fountain, 2011
WAEL SHAWKY NAMED ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF INAUGURAL ART BASEL QATAR
Wael Shawky, an Egyptian artist, has been chosen as artistic director of Art Basel Qatar. The Doha-based artist represented Egypt at the last Venice Biennale in 2024, celebrated for the way in which he blends regional history and global myth into his practice. The curatorial direction of the fair focuses on the Gulf’s growing role in the global art ecosystem. Around 50 galleries will be participating in the fair across the two venues, M7 and the Doha Design District. Shawky will be working alongside Vincenzo de Bellis, chief artistic officer and global director of Art Basel. Shawky is also already involved with institutional programming in Qatar and was named artistic director of Qatar Museum’s creative hub, Fire Station: Artist in Residence; in this role Shawky works on encouraging emerging artists from the region and has plans to create an educational program. The upcoming fair will shift away from the traditional fair model, with an open concept for the booths. With the overarching theme of “Becoming,” the curatorial direction encourages galleries to explore the shifts that are happening across the globe and the transformations within humanity. The Gulf was described in a press release as a “living palimpsest,” where the historical meets the contemporary. Shawky noted, “It was important to make the theme connect with Doha and the Gulf, and allow imagination from the artists and the galleries,” he said. “I was interested to think of how we as human beings are seeking to always evolve and develop … And our dream to develop out of one system into another system.”
Wael Shawky, Artistic Director, Art Basel Qatar
EMILY KAM KNGWARRAY REVIEW – CONNECTED TO SOMETHING FAR BEYOND THE ART WORLD
A new exhibition opened this week at the Tate Modern by Emily Kam Kngwarray, an Indigenous Australian artist. Kngwarray began painting in the last six or seven years of her life, creating more than 3,000 paintings. Prior to this Kngwarray made batik prints, the intricate cotton and silk creations reflecting the flora and fauna around her. There is a sense of improvisation that permeates through Kngwarray’s works, conveying a sense of dynamism and immersion. Kngwarray was born around 1914 in the Northern Territory, growing up around her ancestral Alhaker Country homeland during which she witnessed the atrocities of colonial settlement. By the 1970s, the land began to be returned to the traditional owners, and batik became an avenue for self-employment for the women at the former Utopia station homestead. Throughout Kngwarray’s work references to her Indigenous Anmatyerr culture can be denoted, highlighting how painting was a continuation of Kngwarray’s cultural practice. The artist’s work ranges from meticulous compositions to expressive gestural strokes, both of which convey the connections and life-force that drives Kngwarray’s practice. The exhibition is running until January 11, 2026.
Emily Kam Kngwarray in 1980
Jordan Tan holds an MA in History of Art from the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art. With a passion for fine art and the art market, Jordan plays a key role at Art Works by researching and interpreting trends across the primary and secondary markets, delivering valuable insights and business intelligence for the fine art department.
