WORKS|PROJECTS, the renowned Bristol-based commercial gallery, has announced that it is leaving its current premises this month and embarking on ‘a new expanded programme from the end of 2014’.
In a statement issued via email, it states that closing the gallery marks a new phase for the organisation. Based at its production office in Frome, Somerset, it plans to focus its efforts on ‘a more dynamic model than its past gallery-based programme, combining a series of strategic development initiatives with a peripatetic programme of exhibitions and commissions by gallery artists across the South West of England and nationally.’
It will continue to work with its stable of UK artists – including Andy Holden, Heather and Ivan Morison and Richard Woods – as well as ‘nurturing the best emerging talent in the South West of England’.
Since launching in 2008, WORKS|PROJECTS has carved out a reputation as a centre for publicly accessible, critically engaged art in Bristol, presenting exhibitions of new work and curated group exhibitions, together with special events and performances. The final exhibition at the gallery, Magnus Quaife’s Like a Child Running a Stick Along a Fence, closed on 12 July.
Commenting recently on the opening of Hauser & Wirth’s new arts centre in Somerset, WORKS|PROJECTS director Simon Morrissey said: “The more subtle and perhaps even more significant impact emerges from a world-leading commercial brand making an unparalleled commitment to invest in a regional base in the UK. That has, in a single step, both connected the region with the centre of the international artworld and broken the almost total concentration of the international commercial sector on London. The effect of both will be fascinating to watch unfold.”
Details of WORKS|PROJECTS new programme will be announced later in the year. Meanwhile, a message on the Contact section of its website states: ‘The Sydney Row gallery has now closed. We are in the process of relocation. For postal correspondence please use our production office address.’
