Victoria Miro Gallery
Encyclopedia
The Victoria Miro Gallery is a leading British contemporary art gallery in London
, with an international reputation, run by Victoria Miro, one of the "grandes dames of the Britart
scene", who first exhibited Chris Ofili
and the Chapman Brothers
. She opened her first gallery in 1985 in Cork Street
, where she became one of the principal dealers, then moved to much larger premises adjacent to Hoxton
in 2000. Her sale of Ofili's work, The Upper Room
, to the Tate
gallery in 2005 caused a media furore, as Ofili was a serving trustee of the Tate, which was censured by the Charity Commission
. The gallery represents Turner Prize
winners, Ofili and Grayson Perry
.
, West London, in 1985, where she became one of the principal dealers, although the premises at 750 square feet (69.7 m²) were little larger than a studio apartment. In the late 1980s, she opened a second gallery in Italy, but shut it in 1991 after the art market slump.
She was responsible for starting the careers of some of the most sought-after and controversial artists in the world. Victoria Miro discovered Chris Ofili
, whose work The Holy Virgin Mary
displayed in 1999 in the Brooklyn Museum of Art
angered the mayor of New York City
, Rudy Giuliani
, who said, "There’s nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects!" Another discovery, in 1992, was German photographer, Andreas Gursky
, one of whose photographs, eight years later, made $250,000 at auction; a major retrospective was held in 2001 at the Museum of Modern Art
, New York. A work by Cecily Brown
, another artist represented by Miro, also sold for a surprisingly high price at auction in 2000.
Long waiting lists of collectors and museums developed to buy work from her successful artists, and Miro reported that even Charles Saatchi
, when he bought a Cecily Brown
painting from her, "seemed pleased to get one."
, adjacent to the cutting-edge art area of Hoxton
, where it is housed in a two floor, 10000 square feet (929 m²), converted Victorian
furniture factory, ten times the size of the Cork Street gallery. Miro's co-director, Glenn Scott Wright, attributed the move to the "buzz" in the area, where Jay Jopling
's White Cube
gallery had also moved, and saw other galleries following suit, since rents in the West End of London
were quadrupling. She was described by Christie's
curator, Gerard Goodrow, as "a leading figure in making the East End the center of contemporary art in London."
A group show prior to the conversion of the building brought 4,000 visitors, which it would have taken the Cork Street gallery six months to attract. The conversion architect, Trevor Horne
retained some of the original features of the building, such as the worn staircase and rough roof beams, while the waste ground at the rear next to Regent's Canal
was left to artist Ian Hamilton Finlay
to regenerate. The opening show by Thomas Demand
was of paper and card reconstructions of photographs of interiors.
The gallery's yearly turnover is in the tens of millions of pounds.
The gallery represents Turner Prize
winners, Chris Ofili
and Grayson Perry
; and former Turner Prize nominees,
Phil Collins
, Peter Doig
(a former Tate trustee), Ian Hamilton Finlay
, and Isaac Julien
. Other artists, as of 2008, are Doug Aitken
, Hernan Bas
, Varda Caivano, Verne Dawson, Stan Douglas
, Elmgreen and Dragset
, William Eggleston
, Inka Essenhigh
, David Harrison
, Alex Hartley
, Chantal Joffe
, Idris Khan
, Udomsak Krisanamis, Yayoi Kusama
, John Korner
, Tracey Moffatt
, Wangechi Mutu
,
Alice Neel
, Jacco Olivier, Tal R
, Conrad Shawcross
,
Sarah Sze
, Adriana Varejão
, Suling Wang
, Stephen Willats
, and Francesca Woodman
.
, an exhibition curated by Norman Rosenthal
and Max Wigram to highlight the role played by galleries in an artist's creative progress, as well as putting work on sale and realigning the Academy with a greater involvement in current art.
The gallery was one of the 118 galleries worldwide to be selected for the first Frieze Art Fair
in London in October 2003, alongside other leading British galleries, White Cube
and Gagosian
.
In March 2004, at New York's Armory Show
, the gallery sold everything on the opening day; this included work by a new artist to the gallery and recent graduate, Raqib Shaw, whose first solo show in London of eighteen drawings and five paintings, stemming from the work of Hieronymous Bosch and priced up to $20,000, had previously sold out.
In December 2004, at Art Basel Miami Beach, the gallery sold out a room of paintings by Suling Wang
, who had not at that time had a solo show. The room was re-hung and sold out again.
by Chris Ofili
was exhibited at the Victoria Miro gallery in 2002: it consists of thirteen paintings, each of a rhesus macaque
monkey, installed in a purpose-built room designed by David Adjaye
. Adrian Searle
, art critic of The Guardian
, wrote that it was a work the Tate
had to buy. In July 2005, the Tate announced the purchase of the work as the centrepiece of a new hang at Tate Britain
.
The Stuckist
art group then drew press attention to the fact that Ofili was a serving Tate trustee, and, under the Freedom of Information Act
, obtained Tate trustee minutes, as well as the price paid by the Tate for the work—£705,000 (costing the Tate £600,000 as VAT
could be reclaimed). This resulted in a media furore, and other details emerged about the transaction.
The Tate had attempted to reduce the price, but Miro refused: she said she had lowered it from the price she originally wanted of £750,000 to £600,000 (making £705,000, including VAT
).
The Sunday Telegraph obtained an email sent by Victoria Miro to Tate director, Sir Nicholas Serota
, in November 2002:
Serota said Miro would have to find half the cost, and she obtained £300,000 in donations towards the purchase from five anonymous private benefactors, several of whom were also buying their own Ofili work. The revelation of this arrangement caused questions to be raised in the press as to whether the private benefactors knew privileged information, and if they anticipated a profit through the increased value of Ofili's work after the Tate purchase.
Richard Dorment, art critic of The Daily Telegraph
, said The Upper Room was "one of the most important works of British art painted in the last 25 years," that the Tate had got "the bargain of the century," and "If you ask me, Miro and Ofili deserve medals for acting not in their own interests but for the public good." The Times
said, "Victoria Miro, Mr Ofili’s dealer, appears to have driven a hard bargain with the Tate, which is the job of a clever dealer." Charles Thomson
, co-founder of the Stuckists, said, "Sir Nicholas Serota [the Tate director] mentions Victoria Miro's generosity in constructing this deal. Victoria Miro’s 'generosity' would seem to be in attracting benefactors who will give money to the Tate—so that the Tate can then give it back to her."
In 2006, the Charity Commission
censured the Tate for breaking charity (but not criminal) law over the purchase.
grocery stall. Her parents were keen on culture and saved, so the family could take holidays in Italy to see the art there. She studied art, then painted at home. She married a lawyer, and had a son and daughter in the 1970s, explaining, "my need to paint seemed to go away when I had children." She looked after the children, until 1985, when she started her Cork Street gallery.
Two of her baby-sitters at that time were a couple, who later became well-known artists, Jake Chapman
, who showed at her gallery, and Sam Taylor-Wood
, since married to Jay Jopling
. Miro describes Chapman, now known, along with his brother Dinos
, for art such as sculptures of distorted children with multiple misplaced genitalia, as an "adorable" baby sitter.
Arthur Goldberg, a noted collector and New York money manager, said of Miro, "She has an incredible eye". One of her sources for finding new artists is a liaison with the Royal College of Art
, where Peter Doig taught, and through whom she learnt about Chris Ofili, Cecily Brown and Chantal Joffe
. She discovered Thomas Demand at another London college, Goldsmiths.
Miro acts with great politeness. Gerard Goodrow said, "As a person, she's very reserved, but she takes contemporary art very seriously." She backs her artists with a passionate intensity, and was visibly condemnatory of both Mayor Giuliani and Philippe de Montebello
, head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, whom she felt had been unjust in a harsh New York Times
opinion piece about Ofili and other artists during the Sensation controversy at the Brooklyn Museum.
She has a reputation for integrity amongst clients; one of them, Arthur Goldberg, said, "She's a real quality person. That goes somewhere in the art world, where not every dealer can be trusted." She is widely known within the art world (but less so outside it), where she is one of London's most influential cutting-edge contemporary art dealers, on a par with Jay Jopling
, the proprietor of the White Cube
gallery. In 2001, despite her success, she rejected identification with the art establishment: "The last thing a contemporary gallerist wants to be called is 'establishment'. I like to think I still take risks in the gallery with younger artists. To me, 'establishment' just means dull."
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, with an international reputation, run by Victoria Miro, one of the "grandes dames of the Britart
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
scene", who first exhibited Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
and the Chapman Brothers
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
. She opened her first gallery in 1985 in Cork Street
Cork Street
Cork Street is a street in Mayfair in the West End of London, England. It is very well known in the British art world for the commercial art galleries that dominate the street. It is located to the north of Burlington House, which houses the Royal Academy, a leading British art institution...
, where she became one of the principal dealers, then moved to much larger premises adjacent to Hoxton
Hoxton
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regent's Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.Hoxton is also a...
in 2000. Her sale of Ofili's work, The Upper Room
The Upper Room (paintings)
The Upper Room is an installation of 13 paintings of rhesus macaque monkeys by English artist Chris Ofili in a specially-designed room. It was bought by the Tate gallery in 2005 from the Victoria Miro Gallery and was the cause of a media furore after a campaign initiated by the Stuckist art group...
, to the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
gallery in 2005 caused a media furore, as Ofili was a serving trustee of the Tate, which was censured by the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
. The gallery represents Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
winners, Ofili and Grayson Perry
Grayson Perry
Grayson Perry is an English artist, known mainly for his ceramic vases and cross-dressing. Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in bright colours, depicting subjects at odds with their attractive appearance. There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of...
.
Cork Street
Victoria Miro opened her first gallery in Cork StreetCork Street
Cork Street is a street in Mayfair in the West End of London, England. It is very well known in the British art world for the commercial art galleries that dominate the street. It is located to the north of Burlington House, which houses the Royal Academy, a leading British art institution...
, West London, in 1985, where she became one of the principal dealers, although the premises at 750 square feet (69.7 m²) were little larger than a studio apartment. In the late 1980s, she opened a second gallery in Italy, but shut it in 1991 after the art market slump.
She was responsible for starting the careers of some of the most sought-after and controversial artists in the world. Victoria Miro discovered Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
, whose work The Holy Virgin Mary
The Holy Virgin Mary
The Holy Virgin Mary is a painting created by Chris Ofili in 1996. It was one of the works included in the Sensation exhibition in London, Berlin and New York in 1997–2000...
displayed in 1999 in the Brooklyn Museum of Art
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
angered the mayor of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
, who said, "There’s nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects!" Another discovery, in 1992, was German photographer, Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky is a German visual artist known for his enormous architecture and landscape color photographs, often employing a high point of view...
, one of whose photographs, eight years later, made $250,000 at auction; a major retrospective was held in 2001 at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York. A work by Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown, born 1969 in London, is a British painter. She has a great respect for art history and her works reveal her reverence and high regard for artists such as Francisco de Goya, Nicolas Poussin, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell while incorporating into her works her distinct female...
, another artist represented by Miro, also sold for a surprisingly high price at auction in 2000.
Long waiting lists of collectors and museums developed to buy work from her successful artists, and Miro reported that even Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
, when he bought a Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown, born 1969 in London, is a British painter. She has a great respect for art history and her works reveal her reverence and high regard for artists such as Francisco de Goya, Nicolas Poussin, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell while incorporating into her works her distinct female...
painting from her, "seemed pleased to get one."
Wharf Road
In November 2000, the gallery moved to its present location in 16 Wharf Road, IslingtonIslington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, adjacent to the cutting-edge art area of Hoxton
Hoxton
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regent's Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.Hoxton is also a...
, where it is housed in a two floor, 10000 square feet (929 m²), converted Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
furniture factory, ten times the size of the Cork Street gallery. Miro's co-director, Glenn Scott Wright, attributed the move to the "buzz" in the area, where Jay Jopling
Jay Jopling
Jeremy "Jay" Jopling is an English art dealer and gallery owner. He is closely associated with the YBA artists and his gallery White Cube represents the commercial interests of YBAs Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn, and Sam Taylor-Wood, whom he...
's White Cube
White Cube
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery designed by MRJ Rundell & Associates in Hoxton Square in the East End of London Mason's Yard, in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London...
gallery had also moved, and saw other galleries following suit, since rents in the West End of London
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
were quadrupling. She was described by Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
curator, Gerard Goodrow, as "a leading figure in making the East End the center of contemporary art in London."
A group show prior to the conversion of the building brought 4,000 visitors, which it would have taken the Cork Street gallery six months to attract. The conversion architect, Trevor Horne
Trevor Horne
Trevor Freeman Horne JP QSO Mayor of Nelson from 1968 to 1971.Horne was born in Christchurch on 30 September 1920. He was the son of Freeman Horne and Mable Smith. He was educated at Gisborne Boys High School...
retained some of the original features of the building, such as the worn staircase and rough roof beams, while the waste ground at the rear next to Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal, just north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London....
was left to artist Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE, was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.-Biography:Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas of Scottish parents. He was educated in Scotland at Dollar Academy. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated to family in the countryside...
to regenerate. The opening show by Thomas Demand
Thomas Demand
Thomas Demand, in full Thomas Cyrill Demand, is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg.-Education:...
was of paper and card reconstructions of photographs of interiors.
The gallery's yearly turnover is in the tens of millions of pounds.
The gallery represents Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
winners, Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
and Grayson Perry
Grayson Perry
Grayson Perry is an English artist, known mainly for his ceramic vases and cross-dressing. Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in bright colours, depicting subjects at odds with their attractive appearance. There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of...
; and former Turner Prize nominees,
Phil Collins
Phil Collins (artist)
-Life and work:Phil Collins was born in Runcorn, England and now lives in Berlin He studied Drama and English at the University of Manchester, graduating in 1994. During his time there he worked as a cloak-room boy and pint-puller at the Hacienda nightclub on Whitworth Street...
, Peter Doig
Peter Doig
Peter Doig is a contemporary artist born in Scotland. In 2007, a painting of Doig's, entitled White Canoe, sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction record for a living European artist.-Early life:...
(a former Tate trustee), Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE, was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.-Biography:Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas of Scottish parents. He was educated in Scotland at Dollar Academy. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated to family in the countryside...
, and Isaac Julien
Isaac Julien
Isaac Julien is an installation artist and filmmaker.-Biography:Julien graduated from St Martin's School of Art in 1985, where he studied painting and fine art film...
. Other artists, as of 2008, are Doug Aitken
Doug Aitken
-Early life and career:Doug Aitken was born in Redondo Beach, California in 1968. In 1987, he initially studied magazine illustration with Philip Hays at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena before graduating in Fine Arts in 1991. He moved to New York in 1994 where he had his first solo...
, Hernan Bas
Hernan Bas
Hernan Bas is an artist based in Florida. He graduated in 1996 from the New World School of the Arts in Miami....
, Varda Caivano, Verne Dawson, Stan Douglas
Stan Douglas
Stan Douglas is an artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has exhibited internationally, including Documenta IX, 1992, Documenta X, 1997, Documenta XI, 2002 and the Venice Biennale in 1990, 2001 and 2005...
, Elmgreen and Dragset
Elmgreen and Dragset
Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are artist-collaborators since 1995 and their work explores the relationship between art, architecture and design....
, William Eggleston
William Eggleston
William Eggleston , is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium to display in art galleries—which, until the 1970s, often tended to privilege work by photographers making black-and-white prints.- Early years...
, Inka Essenhigh
Inka Essenhigh
Inka Essenhigh is a painter based in New York.Essenhigh studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio and the School of Visual Arts in New York ....
, David Harrison
David Harrison (artist)
David Harrison is an English artist based in London.Harrison's work comprises mostly representational paintings and sculpture. Influenced by mythology and fairy tales, he paints scenes that juxtapose, often humorously, humans with natural and supernatural creatures including birds, insects, foxes...
, Alex Hartley
Alex Hartley
Alex Hartley is a British artist whose work addresses complicated and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward the built environments.nowhereisland is Hartley's winning 2012 Cultural Olympiad project for the South West of England...
, Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe is an English artist based in London. Her often large-scale paintings generally depict women and children. In 2006 she received the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award from the Royal Academy.-Life and education:...
, Idris Khan
Idris Khan
Idris Khan is an artist based in London.His work comprises digital photographs that superimpose iconic text or image sets into a single frame , or every Bernd and Hilla Becher spherical gasholder.-Khan received a First in his BA from the...
, Udomsak Krisanamis, Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama
is a Japanese artist whose paintings, collages, soft sculptures, performance art and environmental installations all share an obsession with repetition, pattern, and accumulation...
, John Korner
John Korner
John Korner is an artist based in Copenhagen.Korner was born in Aarhus, Denmark. His paintings feature a mixture of figurative and abstract imagery rendered in watered-down acrylic. Some common motifs are people, animals, boats and trees...
, Tracey Moffatt
Tracey Moffatt
Tracey Moffatt is an Australian artist who primarily uses photography and video.Born in Brisbane in 1960, she holds a degree in visual communications from the Queensland College of Art, graduating in 1982....
, Wangechi Mutu
Wangechi Mutu
Wangechi Mutu is an artist and sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.-Early life:Originally from the Kenyan Kikuyu tribe, she was educated in Nairobi at Loreto Convent Msongari and later studied at the United World College of the Atlantic, Wales...
,
Alice Neel
Alice Neel
Alice Neel was an American artist known for her oil on canvas portraits of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists and strangers...
, Jacco Olivier, Tal R
Tal R
Tal R is an artist based in Copenhagen.Tal R studied at Billedskolen, Copenhagen, 1986–1988 and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, 1994–2000....
, Conrad Shawcross
Conrad Shawcross
Conrad Shawcross is a British artist, the son of the writers William Shawcross and Marina Warner. He specialises in wooden mechanical sculptures based on philosophical and scientific ideas.-Life and work:...
,
Sarah Sze
Sarah Sze
Sarah Sze is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City. Sze uses ordinary objects to create sculptures and site-specific installations.-Early life:Sze graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale University in 1991...
, Adriana Varejão
Adriana Varejao
Adriana Varejão is a Brazilian artist. She works in various disciplines including painting, sculpture, installation and photography.Born in 1964, Varejão lives and works in Rio de Janeiro and is one of Brazil's leading contemporary artists. References to the effects of colonialism are apparent in...
, Suling Wang
Suling Wang
Suling Wang born in 1968, is an internationally recognized painter and contemporary artist, known predominantly for her large scale abstract works. She currently lives and works in London, UK.- Biography :...
, Stephen Willats
Stephen Willats
Stephen Willats is a British artist. He lives and works in London.Stephen Willats is a pioneer of conceptual art. Since the early 1960s he has created work concerned with extending the territory in which art functions...
, and Francesca Woodman
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Woodman was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring herself and female models. Many of her photographs show young women who are nude, who are blurred , who are merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured...
.
External shows
In September 2002, the gallery was one of the eighteen cutting edge, art galleries with international reputations to be selected for The Galleries Show at the Royal AcademyRoyal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, an exhibition curated by Norman Rosenthal
Norman Rosenthal
Sir Norman Rosenthal is a British curator. He was Exhibitions Secretary at the Royal Academy from 1977 until 2008. His encyclopedic programme of exhibitions which stretched from Egyptian antiquities to recent art production, included the exhibition of Charles Saatchi's collection of contemporary...
and Max Wigram to highlight the role played by galleries in an artist's creative progress, as well as putting work on sale and realigning the Academy with a greater involvement in current art.
The gallery was one of the 118 galleries worldwide to be selected for the first Frieze Art Fair
Frieze Art Fair
Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair that takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. The fair is staged by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, the publishers of frieze magazine...
in London in October 2003, alongside other leading British galleries, White Cube
White Cube
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery designed by MRJ Rundell & Associates in Hoxton Square in the East End of London Mason's Yard, in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London...
and Gagosian
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian Gallery is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. There are currently eleven gallery spaces: three in New York; two in London; one in each of Beverly Hills, Rome, Athens, Paris, Geneva, Hong Kong and Moscow.-1980s:...
.
In March 2004, at New York's Armory Show
Armory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
, the gallery sold everything on the opening day; this included work by a new artist to the gallery and recent graduate, Raqib Shaw, whose first solo show in London of eighteen drawings and five paintings, stemming from the work of Hieronymous Bosch and priced up to $20,000, had previously sold out.
In December 2004, at Art Basel Miami Beach, the gallery sold out a room of paintings by Suling Wang
Suling Wang
Suling Wang born in 1968, is an internationally recognized painter and contemporary artist, known predominantly for her large scale abstract works. She currently lives and works in London, UK.- Biography :...
, who had not at that time had a solo show. The room was re-hung and sold out again.
Tate's purchase of The Upper Room
The Upper RoomThe Upper Room (paintings)
The Upper Room is an installation of 13 paintings of rhesus macaque monkeys by English artist Chris Ofili in a specially-designed room. It was bought by the Tate gallery in 2005 from the Victoria Miro Gallery and was the cause of a media furore after a campaign initiated by the Stuckist art group...
by Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
was exhibited at the Victoria Miro gallery in 2002: it consists of thirteen paintings, each of a rhesus macaque
Rhesus Macaque
The Rhesus macaque , also called the Rhesus monkey, is one of the best-known species of Old World monkeys. It is listed as Least Concern in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in view of its wide distribution, presumed large population, and its tolerance of a broad range of habitats...
monkey, installed in a purpose-built room designed by David Adjaye
David Adjaye
David Adjaye OBE is a British architect.-Early life:David Adjaye was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The son of a Ghanaian diplomat who has lived in Tanzania, Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon before moving to Britain at the age of nine, he led a privileged life and was privately educated...
. Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle is the chief art critic of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. He curates art shows and also writes fiction.-Career:...
, art critic of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, wrote that it was a work the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
had to buy. In July 2005, the Tate announced the purchase of the work as the centrepiece of a new hang at Tate Britain
Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
.
The Stuckist
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
art group then drew press attention to the fact that Ofili was a serving Tate trustee, and, under the Freedom of Information Act
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level...
, obtained Tate trustee minutes, as well as the price paid by the Tate for the work—£705,000 (costing the Tate £600,000 as VAT
Value added tax
A value added tax or value-added tax is a form of consumption tax. From the perspective of the buyer, it is a tax on the purchase price. From that of the seller, it is a tax only on the "value added" to a product, material or service, from an accounting point of view, by this stage of its...
could be reclaimed). This resulted in a media furore, and other details emerged about the transaction.
The Tate had attempted to reduce the price, but Miro refused: she said she had lowered it from the price she originally wanted of £750,000 to £600,000 (making £705,000, including VAT
Value added tax
A value added tax or value-added tax is a form of consumption tax. From the perspective of the buyer, it is a tax on the purchase price. From that of the seller, it is a tax only on the "value added" to a product, material or service, from an accounting point of view, by this stage of its...
).
The Sunday Telegraph obtained an email sent by Victoria Miro to Tate director, Sir Nicholas Serota
Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art curator. Serota was director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, before becoming director of the Tate, the United Kingdom's national gallery of modern and British art in 1988. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999. He...
, in November 2002:
- There is also extra pressure as Chris is getting married next week and I suspect he may be less willing than previously to wait for an extended period in terms of finance. Evidently, especially as Chris is a trustee, this is a sensitive situation, but if you could give me some indication as to which way to proceed, I will ensure that your decision is handled with discretion. Ideally I would still love the work to go to the Tate.
Serota said Miro would have to find half the cost, and she obtained £300,000 in donations towards the purchase from five anonymous private benefactors, several of whom were also buying their own Ofili work. The revelation of this arrangement caused questions to be raised in the press as to whether the private benefactors knew privileged information, and if they anticipated a profit through the increased value of Ofili's work after the Tate purchase.
Richard Dorment, art critic of The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, said The Upper Room was "one of the most important works of British art painted in the last 25 years," that the Tate had got "the bargain of the century," and "If you ask me, Miro and Ofili deserve medals for acting not in their own interests but for the public good." The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
said, "Victoria Miro, Mr Ofili’s dealer, appears to have driven a hard bargain with the Tate, which is the job of a clever dealer." Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
, co-founder of the Stuckists, said, "Sir Nicholas Serota [the Tate director] mentions Victoria Miro's generosity in constructing this deal. Victoria Miro’s 'generosity' would seem to be in attracting benefactors who will give money to the Tate—so that the Tate can then give it back to her."
In 2006, the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
censured the Tate for breaking charity (but not criminal) law over the purchase.
Victoria Miro
When Victoria Miro was young, her father had a Covent GardenCovent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
grocery stall. Her parents were keen on culture and saved, so the family could take holidays in Italy to see the art there. She studied art, then painted at home. She married a lawyer, and had a son and daughter in the 1970s, explaining, "my need to paint seemed to go away when I had children." She looked after the children, until 1985, when she started her Cork Street gallery.
Two of her baby-sitters at that time were a couple, who later became well-known artists, Jake Chapman
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
, who showed at her gallery, and Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Wood OBE , born Samantha Taylor, is an English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon...
, since married to Jay Jopling
Jay Jopling
Jeremy "Jay" Jopling is an English art dealer and gallery owner. He is closely associated with the YBA artists and his gallery White Cube represents the commercial interests of YBAs Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn, and Sam Taylor-Wood, whom he...
. Miro describes Chapman, now known, along with his brother Dinos
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
, for art such as sculptures of distorted children with multiple misplaced genitalia, as an "adorable" baby sitter.
Arthur Goldberg, a noted collector and New York money manager, said of Miro, "She has an incredible eye". One of her sources for finding new artists is a liaison with the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
, where Peter Doig taught, and through whom she learnt about Chris Ofili, Cecily Brown and Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe is an English artist based in London. Her often large-scale paintings generally depict women and children. In 2006 she received the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award from the Royal Academy.-Life and education:...
. She discovered Thomas Demand at another London college, Goldsmiths.
Miro acts with great politeness. Gerard Goodrow said, "As a person, she's very reserved, but she takes contemporary art very seriously." She backs her artists with a passionate intensity, and was visibly condemnatory of both Mayor Giuliani and Philippe de Montebello
Philippe de Montebello
Philippe de Montebello served from 1977 to 2008 as the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. On his retirement, he was both the longest-serving director in the institution's history, and the longest-serving director of any major art museum in the world...
, head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, whom she felt had been unjust in a harsh New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
opinion piece about Ofili and other artists during the Sensation controversy at the Brooklyn Museum.
She has a reputation for integrity amongst clients; one of them, Arthur Goldberg, said, "She's a real quality person. That goes somewhere in the art world, where not every dealer can be trusted." She is widely known within the art world (but less so outside it), where she is one of London's most influential cutting-edge contemporary art dealers, on a par with Jay Jopling
Jay Jopling
Jeremy "Jay" Jopling is an English art dealer and gallery owner. He is closely associated with the YBA artists and his gallery White Cube represents the commercial interests of YBAs Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn, and Sam Taylor-Wood, whom he...
, the proprietor of the White Cube
White Cube
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery designed by MRJ Rundell & Associates in Hoxton Square in the East End of London Mason's Yard, in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London...
gallery. In 2001, despite her success, she rejected identification with the art establishment: "The last thing a contemporary gallerist wants to be called is 'establishment'. I like to think I still take risks in the gallery with younger artists. To me, 'establishment' just means dull."