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U.K. Galleries Albion, The Approach Close

Published: May 8, 2009
NEW YORK— Two English galleries have fallen victim to the slump in demand for contemporary art, Bloomberg reports.

Albion Gallery, a high-tech space on the banks of the Thames, will close in June after shutting its site on Manhattan's Upper East Side. An unrelated gallery, The Approach, in the U.K. capital’s Fitzrovia district, will shut next month.

Albion’s 15,000-square-foot gallery has hosted shows by James Turrell from the U.S., Ai Weiwei and Xu Bing from China, and Andy Goldsworthy and David Adjaye from the U.K. Albion will relocate to a smaller, more central site in London’s West End in the autumn.

At dealership The Approach, the current exhibition of works by Cris Brodahl will be its last in the West End, though the gallery will maintain its space in the east of London.

As sales dwindle, contemporary-art prices have dropped 30 to 50 percent at auctions and fairs since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last September. Many wealthy clients have stopped making purchases as a result of the global financial crisis.

Editor's note: Jake Miller, director of The Approach, contacted ARTINFO to say that its West End space was conceived and announced as a two-year project in 2007 and is closing because that time is up, not because of the economic downturn.  

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