Gallerist Leopold Thun Shares the Inspiration Behind Emalin’s Expansion

When galleries open outposts, they often choose an international location or one that telegraphs intentions in a hipper or more salubrious part of town. But with the opening of Emalin’s second location, The Clerk’s House, and its inaugural exhibition “118½,” gallerist Leopold Thun has done neither.

The story of Emalin begins in 2014 when Thun and co-founder Angelina Volk began operating an itinerant project space, which later settled in Shoreditch’s Huntingdon Estate in 2016 before moving to the nearby Lazarus Building in 2021. This iconic landmark was once the site of a gentleman’s tailor and outfitter, Lazurus, Ltd., which housed the showroom and capacious workshops for its owner’s sartorial creations.

The ample space that once housed staff and machinery was well suited to the gallery’s vision of giving a platform to contemporary artists free from the constrictions of commercial galleries and public institutions. Seven years and fifteen artists later, Thun felt the time was right to expand when a nearby property was put up for rent. “If we had, let’s say, a perfect white cube or nondescript space next door, perhaps it wouldn’t have immediately come to mind,” he told Observer, adding that he was very much inspired to pursue expansion by the historically important building.

Less than a two-minute walk from the main gallery, The Clerk’s House at 118½ Shoreditch High Street originally served as a watchtower guarding against the would-be graverobbers that were prolific for several centuries. But like so many of the area’s structures, the house has gone through several guises with a multitude of uses and inhabitants.

“I know that it was previously a bookshop, Magpie Books, and Boy George had his first boutique shop there, but going back, it’s famously known as being the last resting place of Mary Kelly—a victim of Jack the Ripper,” Thun said. “The building was a coffin maker’s at the time, and when she was murdered, her body was kept there.”

SEE ALSO: Gallerist Maria Bernheim On Her London Opening and Getting High on Her Own Supply

Apart from macabre anecdotes, the gallery’s new space reaches into the very cradle of creativity. It’s believed that Shakespeare’s Company of Actors, when performing at the nearby Curtain Theatre, not to mention the bard himself, would visit St Leonard’s Church. Upon the old church’s demolition in the 18th Century, a sturdy wooden door was saved, hung on the side of number 118½ and is still in use today. More lately, 118½ Shoreditch High housed another art gallery, Upstairs at The Clerk’s House, in the 1990s.

In its earliest iterations, Emalin held exhibitions in unconventional and historic locations, from follies in Scottish palaces to abandoned boarding houses in Switzerland, chosen to complement the exhibition experience and the artwork. I asked Thun how the new location enhances the work of the artists on Emalin’s roster.

“I think architecture plays an important role in any building,” he answered. “In our current space, we have lots of windows, which automatically makes you look outwards because that’s what the architecture dictates. The Clerk’s House is quite small but also very human in scale. By default, you are only able to get so many artworks in there, so there’s a narrowing down of focus.”

Emalin took out a ten-year lease on the new space and has worked with the interior to accommodate viewers for contemporary pieces and shows by, as he puts it, “playing into the original features and original characteristics of The Clerk’s House. ”

In an area of London not exactly suffering from a paucity of culture, it can be difficult for artists to gain the critical attention and exposure needed to sustain careers. Thun is hoping that by having two spaces, he can prolong the tenure of Emalin’s exhibitions. “Instead of six shows in one space, we can do four in one and four in another, which means that—best case scenario—a show is up for two and a half or three months.”

Did he have any installations of Emalin artists in his mind when surveying The Clerk’s House originally?

“There’s Adriano Costa who’s Brazilian and works in a very site-specific way by bringing South American energy to the spaces,” he said, acknowledging that it takes time to properly get to know a space. “Then we move on to Özgür Kar, who’s a Turkish media-based artist. He will be the first one to introduce the element of sound, and because The Clerk’s House is on a very small scale and has different rooms, you’re already experiencing that artwork before you see it.”

Opening a second gallery so close to the first might strike some as odd, but several galleries have responded to the growth of London’s contemporary art scene with expansions. Thun understands that it’s exciting for artists to exhibit in different places, but felt that staying local was the right move.

“Maybe having spaces all around the world has become slightly outdated,” he mused. “If anything, it makes me more focused on what I should be focused on, which is exhibition making. It might reduce the amount of fairs that we do a year and might reduce the amount of traveling that we do. And there has been a contraction in the market, I guess. Worldwide, you know, given due to the current economic state and different conflicts.” In periods like this, he explained, one should focus on the core competence of what the business is. In Emalin’s case, looking after their roster of artists is part of what has made the gallery one of Shoreditch’s and the contemporary art world’s success stories.

But did Thun ever think he would be opening another gallery years after Emalin first settled in the area? He doesn’t see it as a fluke but rather a consequence of working with the right talent—specifically, artists comfortable with the gallery expanding in a timeframe others might consider too fast.

“I’m sure that there are other ways of expanding faster,” he considered. “The artists we work with have grown immensely over the past seven years, and they’re also very much ready for this challenge and ready to support us along the way.”

Thun leans toward Panglossian when talking about Emalin’s future and the financial challenges facing the sector, but he is still pragmatic, acknowledging that there have always been ups and downs. According to him, gallerists might not be as frivolous, but they’re still spending. Or they’re just working harder. Regardless, the excitement surrounding the new opening has been infectious for the entire Emalin collective.

“Every single artist that we work with has called us and written to us saying ‘This is so exciting and it’s so beautiful and we can’t wait to be involved,’” he said. “They are already starting to think about shows they want to put on or be a part of, and that excitement is what’s currently driving us.”

That, and the long-term lease. “The beauty of it is that—slowly, slowly—through the eyes of the artists, we will be able to figure out what the strengths and true colors of the building are.”