Hi Emergent! Im Lucinda and I set up LAMB gallery just over 4 years ago. Before this I was working for various galleries, emerging galleries such as Duve Gallery in Berlin to more established institutions such as Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
I started Lamb on the back end of road tripping through Cuba endlessly and buying up Cuban art works stuffed away in drawers from the 70' and 80's. This led me through South America, to Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Colombia. I started looking at artists all over South and Latin America. My firsts show at LAMB London was all Sao Paulo based artists.
From the beginning I was always aware of the struggle of a young gallery based in Mayfair. But I got a great deal on my gallery and from the first exhibition on we were selling. Don't get me wrong there have been times when we have struggled immensely but we keep going.
Initially we started solely working with artists from South America. Over the past few years, we have started representing Portuguese, American, British and French artists, so we have expanded out of that niche, however we still have a strong focus on showcasing Latin American art over on this side of the world.
There have been countless but the one that will forever stick in my mind was my closing show at LAMB mayfair, we held a demolition party (BYOT, bring your own tool) party. We have a full suited and booted march band out on the streets, there was a christmas lights and balloons everywhere and inside the gallery we had built a climbing wall, so the only wall to access the demolition downstairs was to climb. It was an exhibition by Assume Vivid Astro Focus (AVAF), who are simply wild and love to turn their exhibition spaces upside down. Lets just say the gallery was destroyed when I said goodbye to it.
I love having access to artists and putting together shows in the gallery, I enjoy so much the access to work with people we enjoy being around and are inspired by. What I dislike about having a gallery is the financial uncertainty at times.
Firstly I have to love the work, then it is depended on whether we get on and understand each others methods of working and finally if my clients reacts well to the artist. Those three factors are usually important.
I have been traveling and working in South America for years. I represent a lot of artists from this region.
I have a great love for Brazil, always have. I have been lucky enough to have been gifted my new space from a Brazilian collector, so we are creating more of a relationship here with clients and the art world and giving more opportunity to showcase European artists here in our gallery in Brazil.
We have a year long program planned and its all exciting and new here.. Our next show will be a group of 45 artists from Sao Paulo from a artist's group called Hermes, followed by a solo show from our Californian artist Mattea Perrotta. The rest will follow...