"Despite new tax regimes unsettling its rich, London's private philanthropy landscape has gained two promising additions this month. In a grand Georgian townhouse on Bedford Square, YDP (Yan Du Projects) sees the eponymous Chinese patron launch an exhibition venue and artist residency for Asian and Asian diasporic art. A 15-minute walk away, behind a neo-Baroque façade in Fitzrovia, is Ibraaz: a space for art of the "global majority", funded by the Tunisian investment banker Kamel Lazaar and run by his daughter, the curator and former Sotheby's specialist Lina Lazaar."
"'Global majority' is an intentionally broad term," Lina Lazaar says. "There are no limits really as to where it ends." She hopes to embed a sense of "hospitality and open-endedness", across Ibraaz's four floors. In a former ballroom, Ibrahim Mahama's Parliament of Ghosts installation of salvaged armchairs upholstered in African wax-print cloth is "an invitation for all to convene", she says. Upstairs, a library compiled by the Otolith Group is filled with texts by radical leftist and post-colonial thinkers like Karl Marx and Kwame Nkumrah, announcing a serious, progressive politics; the bookstore is presently devoted to Palestinian authors."
Two new London initiatives expand private philanthropy into culturally focused art spaces: YDP (Yan Du Projects) in Bedford Square and Ibraaz in Fitzrovia. YDP provides an exhibition venue and artist residency for Asian and Asian diasporic art and complements the Asymmetry foundation that funds Sinophone researchers and curators. Ibraaz, funded by Kamel Lazaar and led by Lina Lazaar, centers art of the "global majority" across four floors, prioritizing hospitality and open-ended programming. Installations and a library of radical leftist and post-colonial texts underline a progressive political orientation. Both patrons emphasize diversity, identity, community, experimentation, and social impact over private legacy.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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