Closing The Art Space Gallery Premises

2015/2016 has been a great year for us at The Art Space. 2017 promises to be no different.

For almost a year and a half, we have opened our doors to an ever changing crowd of people who are increasingly becoming interested in art. We have held:

• 12 shows (translating to roughly a new show each month),
• 12 conversations with artists, in order to understand their processes and get to know them better,
• 13 critical conversations on topics ranging from Art History to Managing Money made from Art
• 7 Mid-morning Cinema Sessions, showcasing films by African directors on wide ranging societal issues from race to sexuality to politics and identity.

Indeed we have had a vibrant arts calendar, greatly supported by our staff of three and our community of business partners. Thank you.

Our highest grossing artist made Ksh. 2.2M over that period and our least grossing artist made Ksh.10,000 with an average of Ksh. 200,000 for a majority of our artists. Our single most expensive work sold for Ksh. 1.15M and our least expensive Ksh. 5,000. We ensured that our art catered to everyone with our foremost goal being to help develop the local art consuming market. We will continue to do so.

We have seen our work bought locally and internationally from the gallery and also off our website: www.theartspace.co.ke We are proud to continue to see more work from our artists put up in homes and offices.

Initially, we had planned to close the gallery space and move to a “gallery without walls” model, as well as move more work online – a space that we specifically notice has become more energized in as far as selling art from the continent is concerned. This plan was to take effect at the end of 2017.

Instead, we will be closing the physical space, on Riverside Drive at the end of February 2017. The space blessed us the opportunity to learn and engage with audiences and to also make “safe” mistakes.

For the remaining part of 2017, we plan to hold 1 or 2 conceptual exhibitions in interesting locations across the city, playing with our conceptions of space. To this end we are looking for unconventional spaces for these temporary shows.

Our plan for 2017 is to lead controversial exhibitions. Alongside this, we plan to develop skills required for our arts sector.

We want to risk a little more.

We will strengthen our partnership with Lord Erroll, where we had our first pop-up there two weeks ago and we will hopefully continue to bring you more shows at this and other pop-up venues.

We are looking to partner with others to continue conversations around art.

We will also continue to curate collections for our collectors.

Through our online space, we will work to build more sales so that art is accessible from your screens.

We take this opportunity to thank the artists, you our clients, patrons and our business partners.

We look forward to more engagement with you in 2017.

Please feel free to contact us on art@theartspace.co.ke or on +254 790 49 88 48 and find us online on www.theartspace.co.ke

Sincerely,
Abby, Don and Wambui.