HULL.- A brand new contemporary art space, Humber Street Gallery, opened in Hull on 3 February 2017. Located in the Fruit Market cultural quarter, it opened as part of the Hull UK City of Culture 2017 programme. The three storey gallery in a former fruit and vegetable warehouse will present a range of contemporary visual art, design, film, photography and craft throughout 2017, with a café and rooftop bar for visitors.

The opening season features two exhibitions running from 3 February – 22 March: the first major show to explore the work and legacy of COUM Transmissions, which was founded in Hull by artists Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, a subversive collective that took the art world by storm in the late 1960s, ahead of their later involvement in the musical collective Throbbing Gristle.

Featuring materials drawn from their personal archives, and curated by Hull-born Cosey Fanni Tutti herself, this first retrospective also features musical performances, programmed by respected music website The Quietus.

The second exhibition, Power in Woman, features three sculptures by Sarah Lucas, commissioned by the British Council for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, shown in Hull with the support of the Art Fund.

Humber Street Gallery helps cement Hull's reputation as a significant cultural destination, for visual arts in particular. It follows national acclaim for the Ferens Art Gallery, which recently reopened following its £5.2m refurbishment by Hull City Council, and the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, which has also recently been refurbished with a £28-million investment and is now able to bring major and diverse exhibitions to the city.

Other visual arts attractions currently taking place in the city include: Ferens Art Gallery, with works from the its permanent collection, the restored Lorenzetti masterpiece Christ between Saints Paul and Peter and Francis Bacon: Nervous System; Lines of Thought, Drawing from Michelangelo to now at Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull; Salon des Refusés – a joint show from KAG Studio and Associate Members at Kingston Art Gallery in Humber Street; Blade by artist Nayan Kulkarni, the first work to be installed in the public realm as part of the Hull 2017 Look Up public art programme. This weekend also sees the opening of an exhibition by artist Tanya Raabe-Webber at Artlink in Princes Avenue, as part of their year-long diversity and disability arts programme called Square Peg.

Martin Green, CEO and Director Hull 2017 said: "We are really excited to be opening Humber Street Gallery, which will be an amazing cultural asset for the city. It helps consolidate the Fruit Market's status as a cultural quarter and adds to Hull's already strong visual arts offer, which has been led by the wonderful Ferens Art Gallery and Brynmor Jones Library, as well as the smaller galleries and collectives to be found around the city."