Dairy Art Centre

History

The Dairy is a private, non-commercial, initiative founded by art collectors Frank Cohen and Nicolai Frahm cementing their lifelong passion for art and their commitment to increasing access to the visual arts by opening up the Dairy's exhibition to the public for free, and through its newly created education and internship training programmes.

Exhibition Programme

Dairy Art Centre uses 12,500 square feet of exhibition spaces, formerly a milk depository used by Express Dairy Company Ltd.

Dairy Art Centre's inaugural exhibition in early 2013 Quicksand by John Armleder curated by Alessandro Rabottini, married work from the Founders collections, recent works and new commissions specially conceived for the venue. This exhibition was followed by a group show Island curated by Sarina Basta, which took Aldous Huxley's novel of the same title as its starting point. The artists in Island were selected from Cohen and Frahm's personal art collections and included work by Jake and Dinos Chapman, George Condo, Zeng Fanzhi, Urs Fischer, Sylvie Fluery, Takashi Murakami, Sigmar Polke, Ugo Rondinone, Sterling Ruby, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Ai Wei Wei.

In 2014, Julian Schnabel presented Every Angel has a Dark Side, his first solo exhibition in a public art space in the UK for nearly 15 years. The exhibition brought together new and rarely seen works created within primarily the last ten years. Now known as much for his critically acclaimed films as for his art, this exhibition is both a re-evaluation and a celebration of Julian Schnabel the painter – his primary occupation. Two further solo exhibitions, a collection of works by Mexican artist Adriana Lara and a major solo exhibition Greetings From a Place in My Heart by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara followed that year.

Facilities

The building has been divided into various exhibition spaces offering communal, artistic and curatorial opportunities: two main halls, a converted milk fridge, two outdoor sculpture yards, and future plans for an artist-designed milk bar and cafe, a book and media outlet, an education space and a design space.