London's Photographers' Gallery Launches 10-Year Show Programme for Emerging Photographers
The Photographers' Gallery in London is starting a 10-year programme of exhibitions for emerging photographers, with one artist picked every two years. The first solo show runs from 23 June to 26 September 2027, according to The Art Newspaper.
The programme is paid for by a grant from the John Kobal Foundation, a UK-based organisation set up in 1990 to help the public appreciate photography. The grant will cover all the costs of staging the shows. They will take place in the gallery's second-floor space, which has been newly named the John Kobal Foundation Gallery. Michael Mack is co-chair of the foundation.
The gallery, which is in Brick Lane's neighbourhood of east London's Shoreditch area, is run by its director, Shoair Mavlian. Hmm, see note.
The gallery is also backed by public money. Arts Council England, the government-funded body that supports the arts in England, renewed a three-year grant to the Photographers' Gallery in 2023. The gallery is one of its national portfolio organisations, a group of bodies funded on multi-year terms. That grant accounts for around 20% of the gallery's revenue.
Ticket income is another part of the picture. The gallery reported £620,573 in admissions income, the money paid by visitors at the door, for the year ending 31 March 2025.
What this means for photographers is simple. Over the next decade, a new artist will get a full exhibition in a dedicated room, with the costs covered from the outset. For visitors, the calendar now has a fixed slot every two years to look forward to, and the first one arrives in summer 2027.
