JW Anderson to curate On Foot art dialogue at Mayfair gallery Offer Waterman

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Aug 31, 2023

Add repeat curator to Jonathan Anderson’s list of skills, as the multifaceted designer announces plans for On Foot, a dialogue with contemporary and iconic artists at Mayfair gallery Offer Waterman.

 
Opening on September 18 during the next edition of Frieze Art Fair 2023, the On Foot exhibition will be personally curated by Jonathan Anderson at Offer Waterman, a noted gallery and art dealer located in a five-story Georgian townhouse.
 
The novelty is to bring contemporary artists into dialogue with iconic works of modern British art. All of which will be placed beside Anderson’s own fashion designs for JW Anderson and Loewe -- the Madrid marque where he is creative director -- to “inhabit the spaces as viewers and bystanders to the works,” according to the Northern Ireland-born designer.

In the exhibition, pieces from recent fashion seasons have been chosen for the way in which they transform the body and give it sculptural potential, according to a release.
 
“The exhibition will unfold like a walk-through London, embracing the stark contrasts and unlikely juxtapositions that even a short journey through the city offers up," it added.
 
On Foot follows six years after Disobedient Bodies in the Hayward Gallery, where Anderson curated a show featuring sculptors like Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Louise Bourgeois, presented alongside works by famed fashion designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Helmut Lang and Rei Kawakubo.
 
With On Foot, the designer also intends to juxtapose the “salubrious streets of Mayfair” and “the provocatively storied alleys of Soho,” where the JW Anderson store has its home.
 
Artists in On Foot will include Igshaan Adams, Frank Auerbach, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Hans Coper, Shawanda Corbett, Sara Flynn, Lucian Freud, Anthea Hamilton, Barbara Hepworth, Akiko Hirai, David Hockney, Leon Kossoff, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Florian Krewer, Doron Langberg, Jennifer Lee, L.S. Lowry, Henry Moore, Cedric Morris, Dame Magdalene Odundo, Jem Perucchini, Walter Sickert, and Christopher Wood, among others.

Celebrating all aspects of the city from the pub to the park, the gallery’s corridors and staircases will become pavements and traffic-clogged streets with skaters lingering, while ceramics and sculptures will represent crowded scenes. 
 
Meanwhile, JW Anderson’s pigeons will take over a storeroom and a garden square bench -- allowing visitors to take in the surprising abundance of flora and fauna in London.

For the exhibition Anthea Hamilton has collaborated with JW Anderson to produce a limited-edition version of the iconic pigeon clutch, which will be presented at Offer Waterman and the JW Anderson Soho store.