The newly launched Melbourne gallery The Front Room, located on Shamrock Street, Richmond, operates between art exhibitions and a design concept store with an ever-evolving curation of vintage and found objects, as well as commissioned works from local creatives.
Curator and director Jacqueline Foti-Lowe comes from a background in design after running Hub Furniture and The Hub General Store; as such, The Front Room is underpinned by twenty years of observation, curation, and participation at an elite level within the international art and design community. Their artists will be announced throughout the year; however, The Front Room will refrain from the traditional “represented” staple. Instead, The Front Room are not bound to anyone and defiantly wish to operate with a bit of a disregard for the conventional model of “how things are done,” yet always with a focus on creativity.
David Umemoto, Chandelier/Insula, concrete, 95 × 60 × 60cm. Courtesy the artist and The Front Room, Melbourne
“It had been many years that I had been questioning how design retail might look at the junction between art, limited editions, design products and found objects. It crystallised for me early in 2020 when we were being pummelled by the pandemic – the traditional model of retail that I had created for myself may not fit the bill anymore,” says Foti-Lowe.
The gallery launched in December 2022 with the exhibition Anchor: VAS – a reimagined vessel, and will showcase six sculptural works which stand at towering proportion, made from raw concrete in David Umemoto: Fictions from 1 March to 28 April 2023, all while finalising plans for Melbourne Design Week 2023, among other exciting projects.
