Condo is back, it hasn’t been a thing since 2020, did anyone notice? We probably vaguely looked and then shrugged our collective shoulders last year. Condo is back in that January slot it has occupied since 2016, it has always been a secretive thing, a rather aloof establishment gallery thing, a too cool to need to communicate with anyone kind of thing,  but that is generally how it works in London isn’t it? They have a fancy website again, as always, all smartarse graphics and not very informative, all style over substance although not as annoying as the dayglo green year. – “Condo takes its name from ‘condominium’ and is a large-scale collaborative exhibition of international galleries”. Host galleries here in London, mostly the establishment by-the-book galleries South or East rather than the more friendly dwellers of the central ground, share their spaces with with “international galleries” and I guess curators. Actually they seems to have given up on the South London spaces this year, only three involved.

The official website is at best vague, besides telling you where it is happening via a list of links to those host galleries it really tells us nothing and well, previous years have been in most cases, a little underwhelming. Still, we’ll put on our Cynical Smile t-shirts and go have a look when it all quietly kicks of on January 20th. There’s 50 galleries involved, it takes place over 23 spaces, I guess the 50 include the visitors as well as the hosts?  Besides the fancy vagueness of the official website, there is very little offered in terms of motive, the links  take us to whatever the individual galleries choose to tell us on their own websites and they do so in varying degrees. 

We’re promised a preview weekend on Saturday/Sunday January 20th/21st when all participating galleries commit to being open midday until 6pm, it then goes on to February 17th with the individual galleries keeping their own hit and miss times and dates. Yeah, I know, we’re not exactly buzzing with excitement, but we have attended all the previous January London Condo things and well, what can we say? Maybe 2024 is the year it finally ignites and excites?  Watch this space, or maybe not, police around here is still to only cover art shows that really excite is or at least we positive about in some kind of way…. Are any of London’s galleries going to engage with any of London’s artists this year?

Condo 2024 website and links to all the participating galleries