British Vogue - 11.2019

Jo Stella-Sawicka

wears dress,

£995, Roksanda,

at Selfridges.

Shoes, £495,

Manolo Blahnik.

Earrings, price on

request, Belmacz.

Hair: Ryuta

Saiga. Make-up:

Lucy Pearson

M

useums here are finally responding to the fact

that their audiences are far more diverse than

the collections that hang in them,” says Jo Stella-

Sawicka, freshly appointed director (alongside

Emma Menell) of Goodman Gallery: South Africa’s renowned

contemporary arts space, making its grand London entrance

this month, right in the middle of W1’s prime art real estate.

Stella-Sawicka, who left her coveted role as the artistic

director of Frieze Art Fair to helm the new outpost, is showing

me around the temporary Goodman HQ (a beautiful,

sprawling pit stop before the permanent space opens), where

works by the gallery’s most eminent artists – Yinka Shonibare,

David Goldblatt and William Kentridge among them –

proudly hang on the walls. “London has always been an

interesting place for galleries to open internationally,” she

says. “But this is a totally different story.”

For 53 years, Goodman Gallery has been at the cutting

edge, both in terms of its politics and the work it presents.

Founded by Linda Givon in 1966 in Johannesburg (it now

has a space in Cape Town, too), it was the first of its kind

to exhibit black artists during apartheid.

Opening in a new art-centric development on Mayfair’s

historic Cork Street couldn’t be more apt. The road is famous

for bringing the revolutionary to the heart of the establishment

• whether it’s hosting Francis Bacon’s London debut or
  DIGITAL ARTWORK: INK RETOUCH. RING (2017), WILLIAM KENTRIDGE/GOODMAN GALLERY being the location of Peggy Guggenheim’s first gallery. >

Scene

CHANGE

A new London gallery is set to bring

a fresh, global perspective to the

capital’s art scene. Louis Wise meets

the women in charge. Photographs by

Ana Cuba. Styling by Flo Arnold

91

ARTS & CULTURE

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