Project Native Informant became the latest gallery to close when it announced plans to shutter on Friday, bringing an end to a 12-year run for one of London’s most beloved commercial art spaces.
“The decision to wind down did not come lightly,” wrote founder Stephan Tanbin Sastrawidjaja in a statement. “The current global economic, political and social environment has shaped into an extremely volatile and unsustainable environment for a gallery such as ours. Moreover personal factors contributed to this decision.”
Its final show appears to have been a solo exhibition for Sean Steadman that closed over the summer.
The gallery was launched in 2013 in a garage in the city’s Mayfair district and later relocated to the East End. Early in its run, Project Native Informant distinguished itself as a commercial space uniquely attuned to art that dialogued with, and even enlisted aspects of, the internet, mounting shows for artists such as Juliana Huxtable, DIS, and GCC.
Project Native Informant also gave exhibitions to well-known artists such as Ned Vena, Loretta Fahrenholz, Andrew Norman Wilson, Harumi Yamaguchi, Georgie Nettell, and Shu Lea Cheang.
Its closure appears to be part of a wave of shutterings that have largely afflicted New York thus far. Among the galleries to have closed in the city are Clearing, Blum, Tilton, and more.
But it also has become clear that the wave of closures is extending beyond New York—not just in the US, where galleries like LA Louver and San Francisco’s Altman Siegel have announced plans to wind down operations, but also in Europe, where Switzerland’s Galerie Francesca Pia said it would close after more than 35 years.
Project Native Informant had regularly appeared in blue-chip art fairs such as editions of Art Basel and Frieze, just like many of those galleries.
“We are deeply proud of the entirety of our work, and hope our presence was felt,” Sastrawidjaja wrote.
