Head to Deptford for one of the exhibitions of the year
Grim news from gallery-land, where even Manhattan’s mega-blue chips are shedding jobs by the truckload. ‘The market’s fucked,’ one soundbite-handy dealer told me last week, admitting that the reckoning was probably long overdue. For artists, this is bleak: the oligarchs are stuck in Moscow, public funds have run dry and, short of shilling for the Saudis or tech barons, there remains only one street on which to beg: fashion. The prestige rag trade has always had a synergy with the art biz: both hawk luxury goods, at least nominally underpinned by visionary genius, for ludicrous prices. Artistic careers have been made by shows at tax-efficient fashion foundations and both domains are notoriously exclusive.
