London Gallery Weekend announces first recipient of performative public art commission in partnership with UP Projects, as well as Art Fund partnership institutions

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London Gallery Weekend, the free public event which celebrates art galleries in the UK capital, has announced artist #mandyelsayegh as the first recipient of its performative public art commission, which has been developed in collaboration with public art commissioners UP Projects. London Gallery Weekend has also named the 18 regional museums and galleries receiving funding from its inaugural #partnership with #artfund, designed to strengthen relationships between London’s galleries and the UK’s regional institutions. The second edition of #londongalleryweekend will take place from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 May 2022 and feature more than 150 participating galleries, making it the biggest gallery weekend event in the world.

Mandy El-Sayegh, The Minimum

London-based artist El-Sayegh - whose paintings, immersive installations, performances and videos are rooted in an exploration of material and language - has been selected for #london Gallery Weekend’s first public art performance, in #partnership with #upprojects for her proposal The Minimum. Created in collaboration with choreographer #alethiaantonia and composer Lily Oakes, this new work centres around an installation and performance that invites #people in different public locations across the city to consider how bodies make themselves visible within the framework of certain sets of restrictions. It will take place three times during #londongalleryweekend across the different focal areas, Central #london, South #london and East #london.

"This exciting new co-commission by #londongalleryweekend and #upprojects is an unparalleled opportunity to experience a visceral, site-specific performance in three public locations in #london by #mandyelsayegh, one of the most exciting young artists working today. Fusing her painting, installation and performance practices, Mandy's work addresses urgent topics of our time, exploring that terrain personally and geopolitically in a way that is deeply affecting, and relevant to a broad audience."
– #bengiunsal, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts

Exploring bodies in regulated spaces, The Minimum centres around a painted installation roughly the size of a solitary confinement cell. Also known as segregated housing, such cells are used to maximise the security of a community while minimising the autonomy of the subjects they hold. Far from neutral spaces, they are grounds that oppress sensory stimulation, extracting dignity from illicit bodies. For El-Sayegh, the modality between maximum and minimum becomes a space through which the vulnerable body can articulate itself.

El-Sayegh was selected by a panel of industry experts: Jo Baxendale (Senior Policy Officer Visual Art and Public Realm), #bengiunsal (Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts), Dr. Zoé Whitley (Director, Chisenhale Gallery), #emmaunderhill (Founding Director, UP Projects) and Moira Lascelles (Deputy Director, UP Projects). El-Sayegh was shortlisted from a list of artists nominated by galleries participating in #londongalleryweekend.

"London Gallery Weekend’s new performance commission in #partnership with #upprojects is integral to our mission of expanding the visibility of London's galleries and their artists with a wider public audience. Creating this new platform for performance art in #london underlines the medium's importance within artistic practice and how #contemporaryart is experienced. It's really about forging a deeper connection with as diverse an audience as possible - particularly since the artist selected by the panel will be performing in distinct contexts and to different audiences in Central, South and East #london over the course of the weekend."
– #sarahrustin, Co-Director of #london Gallery Weekend

London Gallery Weekend has co-commissioned this performance with #upprojects, which has more than 20 years’ experience of commissioning progressive and impactful public art projects that bring public audiences and communities together with contemporary artistic practice.

“UP Projects are delighted to be collaborating with #londongalleryweekend to commission #mandyelsayegh to create ‘The Minimum’ in three publicly accessible sites across #london. As a charity with 20 years experience of commissioning public art, our mission is to support artists to create new work that enables audiences to encounter and connect with extraordinary #contemporaryart in unexpected places.”
– #emmaunderhill, Founding Director, UP Projects

Partnership with Art Fund

The 2022 edition of #londongalleryweekend also sees the launch of a new #partnership with #artfund designed to strengthen relationships between London’s galleries and the UK’s regional institutions, through the provision of a fund to support costs for regional curators from across the UK to visit #londongalleryweekend.

The fund will enable visits of representatives from institutions who would otherwise not be able to finance the journey. Following an open call to #artfund members, the 18 institutions selected for 2022 are:

Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums, Aberdeen
Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth
Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Glasgow
Humber Street Gallery, Hull
Live Borders Museums & Galleries, Galashiels
Manchester Museum, Manchester
MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton
The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum, Stirling
Temple Newsam House, Leeds
The Hunterian, Glasgow
The Tetley, Leeds
York Art Gallery, York
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield

London Gallery Weekend Podcast - Episode 3 Live on LGW Website

Also returning for its much anticipated third episode is the #londongalleryweekend Podcast, in which host #jandalley, Arts Editor of the Financial Times, speaks to a range of guests about the power of #partnership and pioneering endeavours. First up, Jenny Waldman, director of the #artfund, and Jessica Barrie, a curator at Aberdeen Archives, Galleries and Museums, discuss the new initiative bringing together London's commercial galleries with public institutions from around the UK. This is followed by conversations centred around environmental concerns, with leading industry figures Thomas Dane and Victoria Siddall, founders of the Gallery Climate Coalition, talking about how this ground-breaking idea came to fruition and gained traction from solutions-hungry galleries looking for more responsible ways to operate; and a discussion with the artist Haroon Mirza, whose visionary work centres around energy and power, about how a perception shift is needed from within the industry in order to bring about change.

To listen visit: londongalleryweekend.art or your preferred podcast platform

London Gallery Weekend 2022 Programme

London Gallery Weekend has fast established itself as the biggest gallery weekend event in the world, with more than 150 participating galleries announced for its expansive second edition, taking place from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 May 2022. New galleries from across the city have signed up to take part in the initiative, joining a growing list which includes the city’s most renowned international galleries alongside emerging art spaces.

National and international visitors to #londongalleryweekend this year will discover the rich and diverse range of exhibitions that the city’s galleries have to offer, with the opportunity to see contemporary painting, ground-breaking new sculpture, immersive installations, and performance work – all in a single weekend, and all totally for free. Art-lovers, collectors and curators, travelling around the city, can see new work by a dynamic group of artists who traverse generations and geographies, some of whom are presenting for the first time in the UK, together with museum-quality shows of established international names.

Details of all participating gallery exhibitions will be available on the #londongalleryweekend website, which has been designed and built by Artlogic. The website is the event’s key information and navigation tool, providing visitors with the ability to map their gallery visits across the city

Each of #london Gallery Weekend’s three days focuses on one area: starting with Central #london on Friday, followed by South #london on Saturday and culminating on Sunday with galleries in the East End. All participating galleries will be open across the three days, and until 8pm on their respective focus days.

The exhibitions programme runs alongside an expanded public events programme that includes live performances, engaging educational talks and activity workshops for families. Further details about the performance and events programme will be announced in the coming weeks.