Gagosian Launches Itinerant Exhibition Format Gagosian Open in London

Gagosian gallery has launched Gagosian Open, a new itinerant exhibition format that moves beyond traditional white cube spaces. The inaugural show, 'Christo. Early Works,' opens October 6, 2023, at a historic Georgian building at 4 Princelet Street in Spitalfields, East London. The venue, a protected 18th-century structure once owned by Sir Benjamin Truman, has housed Huguenots, Irish workers, Eastern European Jews, and a Bangladeshi community. Christo, who fled communist Bulgaria in the mid-1950s and lived as an outsider in Prague, Vienna, Geneva, Paris, and New York, is the focus. The exhibition spans four floors and features about twenty of Christo's early wrapped works from 1958 to the 1970s, including a pair of blue shoes belonging to Jeanne-Claude, shown for the first time. Curated by Elena Geuna, who worked on Damien Hirst's 'Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable' in Venice in 2017, the show is part of a broader Gagosian Open strategy to host temporary off-site exhibitions in disused or outdoor spaces. All works are for sale, priced between €120,000 and €1.6 million. Gagosian's collaboration with Christo's estate began in June 2023 with a Paris show and works at Art Basel, but is not exclusive. A second Gagosian Open chapter is planned for spring 2024 in London. Concurrently, Gagosian Basel is hosting a solo show marking the 25th anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 1998 wrapping of 178 trees at Fondation Beyeler.