New Cube gives modern artists an open space

JAY JOPLING, one of Britain's most successful dealers in cutting-edge contemporary art, is to open a gallery to display works by the best-known young British artists.

White Cube 2, as it will be called, will open in April in Hoxton Square, north London, an area rapidly becoming a new cultural quarter in the capital.

Designed by Mike Rundell, the architect of Damien Hirst's and Matthew Freud's Pharmacy restaurant in Notting Hill, west London, the Hoxton building will include a large, top-lit gallery space, offices, and viewing rooms. The gallery, measuring 17m x 9m, is more than five metres high and will be a striking new space for exhibitions in London.

White Cube 2 will open with an exhibition of work by the generation of artists with which the gallery has become closely associated.

Many of them have become big players on the British art scene, including Jake and Dinos Chapman, Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn, Sam Taylor-Wood and Gavin Turk.

Mr Jopling said yesterday: "White Cube 2 is unashamedly a space for artists on the scale of a New York gallery. We are expanding into an area that is becoming the most culturally vibrant in London."

Many successful art developments have been created in Hoxton including the BFI's Lux Cinema, Circus Space and English National Opera's Studio.

The area, especially to the east, has been attracting artists in large numbers since the 1960s and now has the biggest concentration in Europe.

The original White Cube in Duke Street, central London, will operate as it has for the past seven years, as a project space for contemporary art.