[...] If this were a normal year, around about now, London’s commercial art world would be just emerging from the fog of jetlag after what would have been the third edition of the Frieze Los Angeles art fair, and trying not to think about the fact that in a couple of weeks’ time, they’d get on a plane to New York to do it all again at the Armory. Every gallery would have someone on the phone, tracking the shipping of artworks sold or unsold; every gallery would be calming, cajoling or cracking the whip on whichever artists were dragging their feet getting the next work out of the studio and into a shipping container.
Now, the London art world has shrunk. Just like the rest of us, gallerists are restricted to screens and sofas. And yet - whisper it - might this be not entirely a disaster?
This week sees the launch of the second iteration of a new, pandemic-induced project, the London Collective. A 21-strong group of London galleries, ranging from international behemoths like David Zwirner and White Cube to Peckham pioneers like Hannah Barry Gallery and Bosse & Baum, has come together to create an online exhibition hub where visitors can see a new show almost every day via a new, whizzy website.[...]
