Veteran Cape Town Gallery Southern Guild To Open First U.S. Branch In Los Angeles

Southern Guild, a Cape Town–based gallery known for nurturing superstars like Zanele Muholi, will open an outpost in the Melrose Hill section of Hollywood, steps from Sargent’s Daughters, James Fuentes, and David Zwirner, in 2024. The announcement comes a week after another Cape Town stalwart, Goodman Gallery, revealed plans for a New York space.

The expansion has been 16 years in the making, Southern Guild’s cofounders, the artist-turned-gallerists Trevyn and Julian McGowan, said in an interview.

At the time of the interview, the pair were in Los Angeles overseeing the construction of the new space, while also preparing for Southern Gallery’s debut at the Armory Show in New York. Neither McGowan seemed particularly daunted by the workload. Under their direction, Evan Raabe Architecture—the studio behind Hauser & Wirth’s LA branch and Christie’s Beverly Hills—is transforming a disused laundromat at 474 N Western Avenue into a 5,000-square-foot gallery. 

It comprises three large-scale exhibition rooms, and while each room may host separate exhibitions, there’s no difference in size or designation. The layout mirrors the cofounders’ approach to dealing: no hierarchy within their wares, whether they be painting, ceramic, performance, or sconce.

Southern Guild opened in 2008 as the one of the few commercial spaces in South Africa dedicated to “collectible” craft and homeware made by artists from Africa, most of whom were not well-known beyond the continent. That was a shame, they said, because the work was unlike anything else on the international market—tactile and sculptural but also functional, with a form and feeling inextricable from the art traditions of South Africa, as well as its neighbors, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Senegal.

At the time, Cape Town was only 14 years post-apartheid. Art that celebrated the social idiosyncrasies suppressed during its rule was flourishing. Southern Guild wanted collectors, critics, and curators around the world to see its worth without having to travel to South Africa.