Interview: Lisson Gallery Partner Louise Hayward
THE WICK: What is it about the curatorial mission and vision of Lisson that has kept you excited and engaged for so long?
Louise Hayward: I have worked for Lisson for 16 years and in that time we have grown the business from the two galleries on Bell Street, London to New York, Los Angeles and China. The growth has been led by an exceptional team with a curiosity for artistic exchange and the desire to build a network of collectors and museum relationships globally. When I first joined Lisson, I came from my own gallery, STORE, which held the principle of curatorial expertise at its core: in Lisson I found a natural home and as one of my dear collectors describes the gallery, ‘it is a place for evocative thought’. I’m also very lucky to have a number of great friends who double up as colleagues and artists. It’s no wonder so many of us have been at the gallery for years.
TW: You have programmed some incredibly diverse and exciting exhibitions. Which for you has been most significant and why?
LH: So hard to choose from the likes of John Akomfrah, Ryan Gander, Lee Ufan, Otobong Nkanga, Haroon Mirza and working with Ekow Eshun and Omar Kholief on group shows, but a personal, memorable highlight was the exhibition I curated in a traditional Hanok house in Seoul, Korea in 2023. It was a beautiful experience thinking through the history of the house and how to honour the architecture, garden and materials with works by our artists. As well as exhibitions, I work on the art fairs, designing and strategising all our booths – mini exhibitions on a treadmill of scheduling! I am working on one for Frieze London which will highlight artists whose ethos of environmental activism informs the very premise of their work.
TW: We have heard you describe Lisson as an ‘artist-led’ gallery. What does that mean for you, and why is it important?
LH: The ‘artist-led’ vision of Lisson stems from the 1960s when Nicholas Logsdail invited the artists he liked and admired to exhibit in the gallery. At the time, they were considered radical and the gallery created a brand associated with innovative thinking. This continues to the present day and we work closely with our artists to realise and present their ideas, seek museum partners for global audience engagement and place their works in the best collections. The gallery has always thought of a future of cultural legacy and impact, and a driver of market leadership – without art, society as we know it would not exist.
TW: As a Londoner, why do you think gallery culture is so vital to the ecosystem of culture in the capital?
LH: There are 100’s of galleries in London and they propel the ecosystem of arts in the city. Without the business generated by galleries, providing income to the artists and charitable support to the museums, the visual arts would fizzle out. I would like the government to lower the VAT rate on art made in the last 100 years to 5% (in line with our import fees and similar to the VAT rate of many European countries on art). This would provide a commercial infrastructure to support the arts in this country by incentivising collectors and companies to invest in art in the UK. Unless changes are made, we will see the prosperity generated by modern and contemporary art dissipate further and move across the Channel. I believe the future of UK exports will be AI and culture. AI is being subsided to the tune of billions, why not the arts?
“The gallery has always thought of a future of cultural legacy and impact, and a driver of market leadership – without art, society as we know it would not exist.”
