As summer draws to a close in London, it’s a busy time for Tommaso Corvi-Mora.
The gallerist was preparing in early September to open a show featuring Than Hussein Clark and David Lieske, while also gearing up for another exhibition in early October with Che Lovelace — a Trinidadian artist known for vivid paintings that celebrate the cultural vibrancy, landscapes, and carnival traditions of his homeland. On top of that, Corvi-Mora was preparing for Frieze London.
But he is no stranger to juggling multiple projects.
In 2000, he started his namesake gallery, Corvi-Mora, after previously founding Robert Prime with Gregorio Magnani in 1995. Initially located centrally on Warren Street, the Corvi-Mora gallery moved in 2004 to Kempsford Road in Kennington, a quieter pocket of London just south of the River Thames.
The gallery is split between two distinct structures: a Dutch-style building at the front and a larger, warehouselike red brick building at the back, both featuring exhibition spaces. Shared reception and storage areas connect the two. Shows alternate between the intimate upstairs galleries and the expansive, industrial ground-floor venues, allowing for dual exhibitions to run simultaneously.
The gallery also houses a natural wine shop, One A Wines. And together with his wife, Cornelia Grassi — who runs greengrassi gallery — Corvi-Mora operates a nearby space called Neither. “It’s a third space that we use as a kind of release route from the gallery program where we do one-offs with artists,” or show things that “we don’t have the opportunity to fit in the program,” he said in a phone interview.
Reflecting on the early days of the London art scene, Corvi-Mora recalled a very different world. “When we moved here, it was an area where there was very little going on, but there was Gasworks — they’ve been in this neck of the woods since the early 1990s,” he said, referring to the gallery and studios that also offers residencies, international fellowships and educational projects.
“Now there’s actually quite a few galleries in this neighborhood,” he added. “London has changed completely because it’s a much bigger scene, and it’s international. It’s all over the city and it’s been interesting to see the transformation.”
For Corvi-Mora, Frieze has played a key role in that transformation. (This year’s event runs Oct. 15-19 at Regent’s Park.)
“Frieze for me is a very special fair because, firstly, I’ve been doing it since the beginning and it has been very, very important within London,” he said. “It’s really the only fair I do now. I used to do five or six a year, but in 2013 I stopped. I wanted to focus on the gallery, on the exhibitions. I wanted to focus on quality over quantity.”
This year, his booth will feature ceramic works by Sam Bakewell — a series called “Dust,” in which he used the shavings from fine-sanding his works and transformed the detritus into new forms — ceramics pots by Matthew Warner, as well as paintings by Brian Calvin, Anika Roach, Jennifer Packer and Jem Perucchini.
Corvi-Mora will also present work by Lovelace, the Trinidad-based artist. On view will be “The Red House” (2020). “This painting reflects on the unfinished red brick houses scattered across Trinidad,” Lovelace wrote in an email, “symbols of working-class struggle for the basic right to shelter in a system where access to funding is unequal.
“At the time of making the work, a Jamaican court had ruled in favor of banning a student from school for wearing dreadlocks — a shocking denial of cultural identity,” Lovelace added. “In response, I gave the figures in the painting dreadlocks, honoring communities that continue to face discrimination. Their presence is resolute, their gaze undefeated, holding on to the possibility that this house will one day be completed.”
Another name on the booth list is Tomoaki Suzuki, the Japanese sculptor known for meticulously hand-carved wooden figures that stand no taller than 50 centimeters (about 20 inches). Suzuki, who lived in London for over 25 years, is currently showing at SCAI The Bathhouse in Tokyo.
“He’s someone I started working with when I opened on my own in 2000,” Corvi-Mora said. “I’m very impressed with the way he designed the sculptures and the movement, and he’s very accurate in the way he captures the pose, the stance of people.”
“They’re really special,” he added.
Suzuki has spent years creating portraits of young people — often those who, like him, were not born in London but moved there from abroad.
“I’m really interested in this kind of liminal quality that the city has of being transitional and an interesting place for young people who are trying to figure out who they are,” Corvi-Mora said.
For Frieze, Suzuki’s sculpture “Hikage” (2017) will be displayed. It depicts a man standing with his hands behind his back, wearing rolled up skinny jeans, New Balance sneakers, a fedora hat and a bright turquoise cardigan over a checkered shirt.
Suzuki begins each sculpture by finding a model — often the most difficult step, he said. “I don’t think I am an extrovert,” he wrote in an email. In the past, he searched London’s streets for people whose fashion reflected youth culture. More recently, he has turned to Instagram. The model is invited to the studio for photo and video sessions, supplemented by 3-D scanning to capture precise details. Edited images are printed and used to trace the model’s silhouette onto a wood block, which has been carefully prepared in a woodworking shop.
Using a band saw and chisels, Suzuki carves the form — working from life over approximately 15 studio sessions, each lasting about two hours. In London, he worked with limewood; now back in Japan, he sources similar woods locally. After carving, he paints each piece in acrylic, a process that takes a few weeks (the entire sculpture can take six to 10 months to complete, depending on its complexity).
Naturally, the works reflect evolving fashion trends and cultural differences, especially now that the artist is based in Tokyo, where he moved to permanently in 2021.
“There are noticeable differences between fashion in London and Tokyo,” Suzuki said. “People in London tend to wear darker, mostly black clothing, which I think reflects European traditions of style. In Tokyo, by contrast, people wear more colorful clothing.
“London also carries an attitude of punk rock culture, with British eccentricities and edgy, spiky accessories. Tokyo fashion, on the other hand, is often kawaii, perhaps connected to manga or other subcultural influences,” he said, using a Japanese term meaning cute, often with a childlike or playful aesthetic.
In Harajuku, Japan, he noted so-called Lolita fashion, and said that “Tokyo has become a center of fashion in Asia.”
“Korean youth culture, especially K-pop, has had a strong influence, energizing the Tokyo fashion scene,” he added.
As for working with Corvi-Mora: “He is a wonderful gallerist,” Suzuki said.
“Unlike the flashy Mayfair galleries, Tommaso’s space has remained modest, grounded, and down-to-earth in Kennington,” Suzuki added. “I feel this philosophy may come from his Italian background and the long history of Renaissance art. As someone from Japan, I have learned a lot from him,” he said.
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