Cork Street Galleries is thrilled to announce its forthcoming programme of exhibitions and events for London Gallery Weekend 2024, which takes place on the weekend of 31 May – 2 June 2024, with John Akomfrah revealed as the artist for its Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission 2024.

Akomfrah’s new work, The Secret Life of Memorable Things (2024), follows on from the artist’s presentation at the Venice Biennale, Listening All Night To the Rain, commissioned by the British Council for the British Pavilion, and continues to investigate themes and motifs that explore memory and the personality (ties) of the object, in a new form. The commission, which will be unveiled on Cork Street for London Gallery Weekend, comprises five lines of double-sided banners across Cork Street, with three banners per line and a total of 30 individual artworks, creating one exhibition running from north to south of the street and another exhibition south to north.
The street’s permanent roster of galleries – including Frieze No.9 Cork Street, Alison Jacques, Alon Zakaim Fine Art, Flowers Gallery, Goodman Gallery, Holtermann Fine Art, MASSIMODECARLO, Messums London, Nahmad Projects, The Redfern Gallery, Stephen Friedman, Tiwani Contemporary and Waddington Custot – together present twenty exciting exhibitions for the coming months.

Adam Rouhana, A Lion’s Watermelon (بطيخة أسد), 2022. Courtesy of the artist
FRIEZE NO.9 CORK STREET (9 Cork Street) presents a number of exciting summer exhibitions for 2024. Opening to the public from 3 May at No.9 Cork Street, are exhibitions by Carvalho Park, Gathering, Window Project and an independent exhibition of works by photographer Adam Rouhana, curated by Amah-Rose Abrams, running concurrently through 18 May 2024.

In Gallery One, Gathering and Window Project collaborate on ‘Sports Illustrated,’ a dual exhibition of Tamara K.E. and Gia Edzgveradze, both key figures in the emergence of Georgia’s contemporary art scene. In an ironic parallel with the eponymous magazine, known for its celebration of athletic prowess and infamous annual swimsuit edition, ‘Sports Illustrated’ addresses the patterns of desire and power that underpin the world of sports. Fittingly, these dynamics are also essential to the maintenance of close relationships; K.E. and Edzgveradze are life partners. Positioning their work side by side, ‘Sports Illustrated’ prompts reflection on the competition and play within eros, ambition and interpersonal relationships.

Tamara K.E, Untitled (From the series: ‘The End of the Fringe’), 2023. Charcoal, pastel on paper, 173 × 123 × 4 cm (framed). Courtesy of the artist and Gathering
Adam Rouhana has practised photography since he was a child, reflecting Palestinian life from the vantage point of its people beyond news cycles and photojournalism. A selection from his ‘Before Freedom’ series is presented in Gallery Two, curated by Amah-Rose Abrams, marking Rouhana’s first solo exhibition, following coverage in the New York Times, Aperture and Dazed.

In Gallery Three, Carvalho Park brings three artists on their roster into dialogue about the eternal processes of growth and decay that underlie our world: Copenhagen-based Kristian Touborg, London-based Yulia Iosilzon, and New York and Seoul-based Se Yoon Park. United by their cross-disciplinary approach, these artists combine sculpture, painting, assemblage and collage to explore life and its renewal. Park’s sculptures stress the eternal becoming of the selves, Iosilzon hints at narratives of human-animal metamorphosis, while Touborg’s paintings build worlds in which fluidity reigns.

To coincide with London Gallery Weekend, bringing together over 130 galleries across the city, No.9 Cork Street will open three diverse shows on 31 May, running through 15 June. Vadehra Art Gallery, hailing from New Delhi, will return to the Mayfair space with a recent work by Rameshwar Broota, the artist’s first solo exhibition in London. Featuring both paintings and resin sculptures bearing calligraphic texts and found objects, the show will demonstrate the range of Broota’s postmodern investigation into the human condition.
Upstairs, in Gallery 2, John Swarbrooke Fine Art will present ‘Macabre,’ an exhibition inspired by Sussex artist Edward Burra’s lifetime fascination with the gruesome. The otherworldliness of Burra’s pictures provides a launching point for the exhibition, which will additionally include paintings, works on paper and sculpture by John Minton, Graham Sutherland, Paula Rego, Elizabeth Frink, Grayson Perry and Damien Hirst, among others.

Completing the June shows, The Sunderland Collection will inaugurate its Art Programme at No.9 Cork Street with ‘Shifting Sands,’ an exhibition by Cairo-born, Edinburgh-based artist Fathi Hassan. Created in response to items from The Sunderland Collection, a private collection of rare antique world and celestial maps, the exhibition will engage with the experience of migration, dislocation, diasporic identity and shifting notions of heritage. Hassan uses maps as a lens, incorporating motifs and images that have recurred throughout his practice and drawing in new influences such as thinkers and creatives who have had a global influence on science or culture across borders