The London-based gallery White Cube, which also has a location in Hong Kong, will open a new office and viewing rooms on Avenue Matignon in Paris in the coming months. Other galleries on the street include Maurice Garnier, Taménaga, and Daniel Malingue. “Since the late 1940s, Paris has been a major international art capital,” White Cube’s senior director, Mathieu Paris, told the Art Newspaper. “By opening an office with viewing rooms in a prestigious location of the city, White Cube intends to perpetuate a more classical way of operating in the industry. The idea is to present great masterpieces of art in a beautiful but confidential environment, respecting the long-established Parisian tradition of marchand d’art” (art dealing).

Among the galleries also looking to set up shop in the French capital are David Zwirner, which announced in July that it will open its first gallery in Paris on October 16, coinciding with FIAC, and Pace. Zwirner’s 8,600-square-foot space at 108 rue Vieille du Temple will launch with an exhibition dedicated to Arizona native Raymond Pettibon. “Frenchette,” the artist’s first show in Paris since 1995, will feature a mix of works depicting recurring themes in Pettibon’s oeuvre, including Gumby, baseball, and totalitarian dictators, in addition to new wave paintings. According to Artnews, Pace hinted at its plans at Frieze London, which opened on Thursday. The gallery, which just opened its eight-story New York headquarters last month, is currently looking for a building in Paris and may have already found one.

While Zwirner declared the gallery’s move to Paris as strategic—“Brexit changes the game,” he told the Financial Times—White Cube’s Mathieu Paris claims that the decision to open a Paris space was not related to the political situation in the UK.  

Frieze London has awarded its 2019 Focus Stand Prize to Proyectos Ultravioleta (Guatemala City) for its presentation at the fair. The honor is given annually to an exhibitor in the fair’s Focus section, which is dedicated to galleries established within the last sixteen years. Proyectos Ultravioleta’s presentation of recent textile works and drawings by artist Hellen Ascoli was praised by the jury for its “subtle aesthetics, sophisticated revisiting of textile tradition, poetic abstraction of the body, and layering of personal and political histories.” This year’s jury comprised Fatoş Üstek, director of the Liverpool Biennial; Anna Katherine Brodbeck, senior curator of contemporary art at the Dallas Museum of Art; and Tanya Barson, chief curator at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona.

Special mentions went out to the Commonwealth and Council (Los Angeles), for its display of works by Nikita Gale and Patrick Staff, and to Galerie Tanja Wagner (Berlin), for showcasing Kapwani Kiwanga’s investigation of historic systems that create and maintain power imbalances through surveillance and institutional control.

Proyectos Ultravioleta’s booth wins Frieze London’s 2019 Focus Stand Prize. Courtesy of Frieze.

Berlin’s König Galerie is opening a branch in Tokyo. Dealer Johann König, who founded the gallery in 2002, told Artnet that he has wanted to establish a presence in Asia for some time. The gallerist first looked in Seoul and Hong Kong before he found the 3,200-square-foot space within luxury fashion brand MCM Worldwide’s flagship store in the city. The gallery will open to the public on November 9 with an inaugural exhibition of works by the German photographer Juergen Teller. “In Tokyo, we will be relatively unique in having a branch there,” said König. “There is Blum & Poe and Perrotin, but there are no other Western galleries, whereas Hong Kong is full.” Commenting on his partnership with the leather goods label, König added that “all over Asia, the fashion and art industry are much more mixed”—Chanel, Hermes, and Louis Vuitton, are among the companies to have held exhibitions in Tokyo.

Pace Gallery announced its representation of the Irish artist John Gerrard. Known for creating virtual worlds through real-time computer graphics that take months and sometimes years to complete, the artist has recently exhibited work in Manifesta (2018), Palermo, Italy; “Marching in Circles” (2017) at Long March Space, Beijing; the Shanghai Biennial (2016); and “Power. Play” (2016) at UCCA, Beijing. His work can also be found in the collections of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; M+, Hong Kong; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Tate, London; among others.

“John’s simulated worlds have helped us understand where art can go in the twenty-first century,” said Marc Glimcher, CEO and president of Pace. “The weight and lightness of our contemporary experiences are focused and reimagined in his universe. His works reconnect us to the powerful realities we have become blind to in our post-internet world.” The gallery’s first presentation of Gerrard’s work is currently on view at Frieze London, which runs until October 6.

Hollis Taggart will open a new location on the second floor of 514 West Twenty-Fifth Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on October 24. The announcement follows the gallery’s hiring of Paul Efstathiou as director of contemporary art to lead the gallery’s growing contemporary program. The new 2,000-square-foot gallery replaces Hollis Taggart’s temporary space at the High Line Nine, which it operated for nearly a year. “Breaking the Frame,” a group exhibition of work by contemporary artists Leah Guadagnoli, Dana James, Justine Hill, Eric Shaw, and Jason Stopa will inaugurate the space.

“Over the last year, we’ve taken the time to assess the future of the gallery, using the Project Space at the High Line Nine to experiment and to consider the ways in which we want to invest time, energy, and resources,” said dealer Hollis Taggart. “We’ve seen time and again that very little supersedes the experience of connecting with a work of art in real life, and so continuing to thoughtfully expand our physical presence is the natural and right decision. At the same time, the new location allows us more freedom to develop our contemporary division, and to create more robust synergies between the presentations of historic work for which we have come to be known and the work of contemporary artists, who are continuing to extend those creative dialogues forward.”