Rivington Place is a purpose-built international visual arts centre in

Shoreditch Shoreditch is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Hackney alongside neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets, which are also perceived as part of the area due to historic ecclesiastical links. Shoreditch lies just north ...

, London.

Origins and history

Rivington Place was commissioned by two publicly funded visual arts organisations,

Iniva Iniva (which was formerly written as inIVA) is the Institute of International Visual Art, a visual arts organisation based in London that collaborates with contemporary artists, curators and writers. Iniva runs the Stuart Hall Library, and is b ...

and Autograph ABP, with the intention of establishing the new venue as a major international visual arts centre in

, London. In the late 20th century, this part of the East End emerged as a new arts quarter, famous for harbouring the

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Golds ...

(YBA) movement, with leading private galleries such as

White Cube White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centra ...

in nearby

Hoxton Square Hoxton Square is a public garden square in the Hoxton area in the London Borough of Hackney. Laid out in 1683, it is thought to be one of the oldest in London. Since the 1990s it has been at the heart of the Hoxton national (digital and design) ...

. Both Iniva and Autograph were founded to reflect and promote cultural diversity in the visual arts, and it was hoped that the new building would advance this aim. The five-storey building was designed by leading architect

David Adjaye Sir David Frank Adjaye (born 22 September 1966) is a Ghanaian-British architect who has designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History, National Museum of African American History and ...

and opened to the public on 5 October 2007. It cost £8 million to complete and was the first publicly funded new-build international art gallery in London since the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Royal ...

opened more than 40 years earlier.

Function and activities

Primarily a free public gallery, for most of the year, the two exhibition spaces are used to show contemporary visual art shows. With of space, the venue also houses education facilities and seminar rooms as well as the offices Autograph.

Significant exhibitions

Featuring in the programme of exhibitions held in the building have been shows by Ghanaian photojournalist

James Barnor James Barnor Hon. FRPS, OV (born 6 June 1929) is a Ghanaian photographer who has been based in London since the 1990s. His career spans six decades, and although for much of that period his work was not widely known, it has latterly been disco ...

, British sculptor

Hew Locke Hew Donald Joseph Locke (born 13 October 1959) is a British sculpture, sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton, London. In 2000, he won a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists, Paul Hamlyn Award and the EASTinternational Awar ...

, French film maker

Zineb Sedira Zineb Sedira (born April 1, 1963) is a London-based Franco-Algerian feminist photographer and video artist, best known for work exploring the human relationship to geography. Sedira was shortlisted for the 2021 Deutsche Börse Photography Founda ...

and Nigerian/British fine-art photographer

Rotimi Fani-Kayode Rotimi Fani-Kayode (20 April 1955 – 21 December 1989), born Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode, was a Nigerian photographer who at the age of 11 moved with his family to England, fleeing from the Biafran War. A seminal figure in British con ...

."Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts)"
Rivington Place.

References

External links

Official website for AutographOfficial website for Iniva
{{coord, 51.5263, -0.0794, type:landmark_region:GB-HCK, display=title Arts centres in London Contemporary art galleries in London Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Hackney Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Hackney Art museums and galleries established in 2007 Shoreditch 2007 establishments in England