“It is said that the camera cannot lie, but rarely do we allow it do anything else, since the camera sees what you point at it: the camera sees what you want it to see,” James Baldwin wrote in “The Devil Finds Work,” published in 1976. “The language of the camera is the language of our dreams.” And the language of our dreams as they are projected on screen is the language of a people, he wrote, who see what they want to see but not always what is there.

But in films Baldwin found that, even though the camera rarely lies, its accessible nature allows us to easily see what is hidden, and brings it to the surface. “The Devil Finds Work: James Baldwin on Film,” a series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center running September 11-14, combines work that Baldwin himself appeared in — his love for film equaled his love of being filmed — and those that he wrote about in various books and essays over a 30-plus year career. According to his biographer David Leeming, Baldwin “was a film enthusiast” from an early age who later “would long to see one of his own works on the screen.” He wrote so perceptively about cinema that it’s hard not to wonder what kind of film he himself would have made. Indeed, it seems, at one point he harbored aspirations: “About my interests: I don’t know if I have any,” he wrote in the essay “Autobiographical Notes,” which opens his most famous book, “Notes of a Native Son,” published in 1955,  “unless the morbid desire to own a sixteen-millimeter camera and make experimental movies can be so classified.”

Baldwin never did make a film, although they seemed to dominate his life and work: He wrote a script about Malcolm X that was never produced; directors attempted, at various points, to adapt his work, although most were unsuccessful; he created many fictional characters who were film actors; he forged relationships with many filmmakers who he respected, including Joseph Losey (who at one time wanted to adapt Baldwin’s novel “Another Country,” with Robert DeNiro and Richard Pryor in the lead roles), Costa-Gavras, and Ingmar Bergman.

“Go Tell it on the Mountain” (1984), an adaptation of Baldwin’s first novel, first published in 1953, is a thin movie-of-the-week version of the autobiographical book. “Now, obviously, the only way to translate the written word to the cinema involves doing considerable violence to the written word, to the extent, indeed, of forgetting the written word,” Baldwin wrote in “The Devil Finds Work.” Directed by Stan Lathan, who has gone on to work in reality television, and starring a credible host of actors trying their best (if anything can be said about the film it’s that it doesn’t do enough violence to the written word), it remains faithfully plain. It fits nicely with Pierre Chenal’s adaptation of Richard Wright’s “Native Son” (1951), a novel that haunted Baldwin’s earliest essays, and which is only elevated by Wright himself starring in the lead role of Bigger Thomas, a meta-fictional experiment that is bold if not entirely successful.

Baldwin was better portrayed, his ideas better communicated, through documentaries in which he appeared. “Take This Hammer,” produced by public media station KQED, follows Baldwin around San Francisco in 1963, speaking to people in the different communities about their struggles. Produced almost two decades later, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” directed by Pat Hartley and Dick Fontaine, sees Baldwin on another trip, this time through the places he visited in the South during the Civil Rights era. Baldwin is a terrific public speaker — “Baldwin’s Nigger” (1968) is maybe the greatest example of this in the series — but in these documentaries he often gives over to listening and letting others speak. Without the cloak of a fictional narrative, with Baldwin present but his voice in the background, it was more difficult for the camera to capture the language of our dreams.  

“James Baldwin: The Price of a Ticket,” newly restored and remastered, offers the most insight and is the most comprehensive film in the series. A portrait of Baldwin’s life and ideas told through a wealth of documentary footage — much of it found in the aforementioned films and others in the series — and talking-head interviews with collaborators and contemporaries, it seems to project something the other films can’t or are not willing to attempt, and which Baldwin’s best work always achieves: something revealing.

At the same time, maybe this is just the illusion of cinema. As Baldwin once wrote: “The distance between oneself — the audience — and a screen performer is an absolute: a paradoxical absolute, masquerading as intimacy.” 

Anderson Ranch Arts Center's 2015 Summer Series featured the mixed-media artist Hank Willis Thomas on July 2, 2015.

From his earliest performances and actions in the 1960s involving animal remains through his infamous multi-day, multimedia festivals staged at an Austrian castle, Hermann Nitsch has remained a figure of boldness and controversy. Earlier this year a major show at Museo Jumex in Mexico City was cancelled— but no such fate has befallen the artist’s solo at Marc Straus Gallery in New York, which opened Wednesday and features uncompromisingly confrontational paintings (made with acrylic pigments and, in a few cases, some actual blood). Scott Indrisek sat down with the 77-year-old artist to discuss religion, wine, crucifixions, and why Nitsch considers himself to be on the same side as the animal-rights activists. 

What is the role and responsibility of the artist?

It’s always been the same, from the beginning of art until now: To educate people, to intensify, and to find a form. To use and protect all of our senses.

Your exhibition here at Marc Straus features paintings, but those paintings are the results of actions and performances.

My action painting is the first stop in the realization of my Orgien Mysterien theater [“Theater of Orgies and Mysteries”]. There’s no symbolism. You can use your private symbolism, and you can have contact through your subconscious, but the most important thing is the substance of the color. It’s not so much the chroma of the color. It’s more the material. And for all the action painters: the color wasn’t so important. I think, for Jackson Pollock, or de Kooning, the color was not so important. But the substance!

The works in this show mostly incorporate red and black, but in the past you’ve used many other colors — yellows, purples, and so on.

That was a late step in my development. As I was getting older, I was able to work in this style, but with traditional colors — the colors of Monet and Rothko.

Obviously certain colors do have associations — like red with blood, and black with tar, or soil.

Red was very important. I was very interested in the Jewish and Greek rituals of slaughtering. In my performances I used blood. And also I used blood with paint. The big work [in the upstairs gallery of Marc Straus] is with blood and paint.

Marc was saying that he likes the paintings in that upstairs space because it’s almost like a chapel. Do you think your work needs this type of sanctuary environment?

I think the traditional religions — they’re not strong enough. I’m very interested in them, but I don’t believe in them. I’m working after Heidegger, with the philosophy of Being. For me, it’s Being instead of God. At the end of the 19th century, many artists were like priests. And I think art can [exist] instead of religion.

A priest would traditionally operate in between the congregation and God. As the “priest,” are you helping communicate with something larger?

Yes, but in a very modern way. When I make a big exhibition, it’s always a sacred room, like a church — but in a new and different way. Everything is metaphysical. People must believe in their reality, in their true being. Being is always — it cannot die. Only our body dies; but then come new bodies, and new bodies…

In the sense of reincarnation?

I’m very interested in the ideas of Buddhism. But it’s also a kind of mythology: We’re here now, and we’re always here.

Does that make it easier to work with subjects surrounding death, because it’s not a finality?

For me there’s no end. Everything is moving. And the problem of time, for me, does not exist. Because time has to do with things that have a beginning and end. In what I believe, creation has no beginning, and no end.

Do you think about your legacy about your work carrying on?

I hope that in 100 years, or 1,000 years, it will be as important as the work of Rembrandt or Cezanne.

How do you feel immediately following an action or performance?

It’s a catharsis, a cleansing. A feeling of the power and intensity of creation and being, with all of my friends and workers. And music, for my work, is very important; I compose it for every big performance, it’s connected with this experience.

Are there people who have been involved for decades with your work, assisting with live performances?

There are very old people, who started with me, and many, many young people who understand my work.

What sort of qualities do you look for in a performer?

It’s a feeling, during the rehearsals, which are like a fire drill: We practice. But we don’t play. We make a real thing. If I bind a person on the cross, I do it, really. And I hate if someone simulates pain. When he has pain, it comes.

Some of your earliest works got you arrested, and you spent some small amounts of time in jail. Do you think artists today are taking the same sort of risks?

In every time, new art comes — and they’ll have problems [to confront]. But I hate politics in art. Art is a great philosophy, much more than politics. Artists who are fighting politics are not interesting.

Because it’s not effective?

I think we have more important things. There must be more intensity — that’s the best politics.

You famously live both in Italy and in Prinzendorf Castle, in Austria, a property you bought in 1971. I was curious what your daily life is like there.

 I live in the country. I like wine! I like to sit outdoors, to go into the vineyards. I paint, I compose. I would say I try to work every day for my art. New York, it’s a great city, but it makes me a little bit afraid. It’s not my lifestyle. But I like it much more than the clean, European cities. That’s not real life. That’s tourism.

Earlier this year you made the news when your show at the Museo Jumex in Mexico was cancelled after protests from animal-rights organizers, although the institution’s director gave other reasons for the cancellation.

There’s always these problems with animals! I always buy the meat and the blood at the butcher; they’re killed before. I buy the carcasses and use them for my performances. And if the police don’t come and take them away, we eat the animal after we use it. And I like animals! My wife and I, we have peacocks. Fifty peacocks! Donkeys, a goat, we have chickens. We have six cats, a dog. If the animals are ill, we go to the animal doctor.

My last exhibition in Palermo, Italy was a great success, all the young people were full of enthusiasm. But before, there were 60,000 signatures [on a petition] against my work. There was a demonstration against me... and three people arrived. The animal-protectors shouldn’t be so stupid! Look at the intensive animal industry [for food]: that’s very bad. I said to them, Why aren’t we united? I’m also an animal-protector. It’s a very big misunderstanding. To use the carcass for my performances: Michelangelo and Rembrandt used human bodies for their art. I think it’s a celebration of nature, and a celebration of the animal, to use them in my performances.

Certainly more so than in the case of something like a bullfight...

Completely different. There, they kill, really. But it’s a very interesting thing, bullfights. They fascinated me, but I was always against them. But now I know: Those bulls have a better life than those in the animal industry. For two or three years, they’re outside, they have a good time. The bulls for the butcher live only one year, or less.

The Jumex show would have been your first solo in Mexico. Do you still hope to show your work there?

I’m not against Mexico, but no.

What country do you think responds to your work the most?

I would say Italy, the Italian temperament. They like drama, tragedy, and joy.

That’s surprising to me, since it’s such a Catholic country...

The Catholics are very open; the Reformed are more controlled. Catholicism has its roots in pagan religion.

What’s next for you?

Before I die, I want to make a big, six-day performance in Prinzendorf Castle. I’ll be 79. Music will be very, very important for this performance. It’ll be hard work to prepare. For the last six-day performance I had 500 people working with me. It’s day and night, no stopping — and it ends with the sunrise. It’s like a kind of resurrection.

The Hermann Nitsch exhibition is on view at Marc Straus Gallery through October 18.

A special summer issue of Modern Painters, which will be published in installments on ARTINFO this week, surveys the world’s best galleries, across six continents and 36 countries. Throughout the issue you’ll hear from 50 of the most influential gallery owners and directors, discussing their achievements and envies, the artists they have their eye on, and the regional trends affecting this increasingly international market. Below you’ll find Q&As with seven gallerists based in Germany. To see other installments from the special issue, click here.

CONTEMPORARY FINE ARTS GALERIE | BERLIN, GERMANY

ARTISTS: Cecily Brown, Sarah Lucas, Daniel Richter, Tal R, Dana Schutz, Gert & Uwe Tobias

ESTABLISHED: 1994

CONTACT: cfa-berlin.de; gallery@cfa-berlin.de; +49 30 28 87 870

NICOLE HACKERT, OWNER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR


How did you get your start as a gallerist?

Moneyless, idealist, constantly quarreling with my partner—in business and life.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

We have generally listened to other artists and their recommendations. [For example,] Marianne Vitale, Borden Capalino,
Rosy Keyser, Sachin Kaeley, Christian Rosa, Ni Youyu.

What was your biggest show of the past year?


“You’re Just Too Good To Be True,” [a group show] organized by Tal R and Juergen Teller.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Alex da Corte at Luxembourg & Dayan.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

There’s no regionalism anymore, owing to digitalism, I guess. And that might be a fair answer to the question itself.


If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

Zwei Arten zu sein, by Maria Lassnig, and Les Marocains, by Matisse.

***

ESTHER SCHIPPER | BERLIN, GERMANY

ARTISTS: Angela Bulloch, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno


ESTABLISHED: 1989

CONTACT: estherschipper.com; office@estherschipper.com; +49 30 37 44 33 133

ESTHER SCHIPPER, FOUNDER AND OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


I completed a course in curatorial studies—notably together with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster—at the Ecole du Magasin in Grenoble, which included mounting an exhibition as an end-of-year examination project. In this show, we included works by Philippe Parreno. As part of the same course, I held an internship at the Whitechapel Gallery, in London, where I first met Liam Gillick and Angela Bulloch. I inaugurated my own gallery at Neusser Straße 28 in Cologne with the exhibition “General Idea’s ¥en Boutique” in 1989. Today I continue to work with the estate of General Idea and with AA Bronson.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

There is no formula, or general way, to discover artists, at least not for me. Through my recent merger with Johnen Galerie, I am excited to work with lots of new artists.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?


Pierre Huyghe at Hauser & Wirth, London.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

One definite trend in my region is the focus toward other regions, such as Asia or South America, be it discovering artists, collectors, or exhibition locations.


What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

I really can’t imagine being or doing anything else.


If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

Malevich’s Black Square from 1915!

***

GALERIA PLAN B | BERLIN, GERMANY

ARTISTS: Adrian Ghenie, Victor Man, Ciprian Muresan, Navid Nuur, Serban Savu

ESTABLISHED: 2005

INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Cluj, Romania

CONTACT: plan-b.ro; contact@plan-b.ro; +49 30 3980 5236

MIHAI POP, CO-FOUNDER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


I started to work in the field of exhibition making a few years after finishing my studies in painting at the University of Art in Cluj, Romania. Galeria Plan B began in 2005 as a project of cooperation born out of earlier collaborations with my colleagues in university and my friends. The name Plan B is a reference to an earlier project, an exhibition space, in fact, belonging to the university. My program then was based on presenting the art production of the students that didn’t have anything to do with the subjects and the tasks they were supposed to do in school.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


The artists joining the Plan B program all have as a major quality their capacity to be in the art language, to work inside it, with the critique and self-critique deriving from the medium used, questioning its mechanism, far from the new production of the contemporary world. One of the artists who recently joined our program is Achraf Touloub, a Moroccan-born French artist in whose works the use of traditional representations—the drawing style of Arab miniatures—speaks in fact about the realities of the globalized world and the networks we live in.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Kai Althoff at Michael Werner in London.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

In Eastern Europe, art always has a certain delay in comparison with the mainstream trends. The relevance of the Cluj art scene has to do with our autonomous understanding of different cultural sources and thinking paradigms but also the cohabitation of all these different directions through collaborations and tensions. To give just two examples, socially engaged art continues to fuel its gestures and productions from global realities, while neo-figurative painting accesses more-historical topics, aiming for museum contexts and the international art scene. Both are to be found in a relatively small scene in Cluj, most of them gathered at the Paintbrush Factory, an art center operating since 2009.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

At the beginning, Plan B was an artist-run space coordinated with Adrian Ghenie, on the initiative of Victor Man. At a personal level, the idea of making art remains my last and truest plan B.

Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.


Ambroise Vollard’s Recollections of a Picture Dealer. Besides the undisputed literary qualities of his writing, I found there the beginnings of my profession through the major figures of modern art.

If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

Probably a work by André Derain from
the ’30s.

***

GALERIE EIGEN + ART | BERLIN AND LEIPZIG, GERMANY

ARTISTS: Martin Eder, Carsten Nicolai, Olaf Nicolai, Neo Rauch, David Schnell

ESTABLISHED: 1983

CONTACT: eigen-art.com; berlin@eigen-art.com; +49 30 28 06 605

GERD HARRY LYBKE, OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


After turning against the system during GDR times by not taking a job offer at Chernobyl, I had few job chances. I became a nude model for artists, and that’s how I met a large number of the artists I am still representing today. I became a gallerist through my artists. Artists who were active against the government doctrine presented forbidden and therefore illegal exhibitions. The history of my gallery and the artists represents the melting pot of a new society that is trying to define itself and thereby looking outward—all while maintaining and not losing the artist’s own distinctive positions. An artist such as Neo Rauch, who was born in the former German Democratic Republic and finished his studies with the fall of the wall, stands for a whole generation of artists who dealt with both forms of society, once attempting socialism and now lively capitalism.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any newdiscoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


In 2012 we founded the EIGEN + ART Lab, and it carries the torch of building the careers of young artists with exhibitions intent on engaging a dialogue around social norms. With the EIGEN + ART Lab, we created a platform to meet new artists and have the opportunity to allow experi- ments next to our main program.


What was your biggest show of the past year?


In our main space in Berlin, we had solo shows of Birgit Brenner, Tim Eitel, Marc Desgrandchamps, and Christine Hill. In our space in Leipzig, we had solo shows of Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani, Jörg Herold, and Rémy Markowitsch. At the EIGEN + ART Lab, we had, next to the solo shows of Katie Armstrong and Despina Stokou, themed group shows presenting different media.


What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?


“Neo Rauch: At the Well” at David Zwirner New York. I appreciate David’s work for Neo in the states.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

The next generation is arising.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

Cosmonaut.

Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.

Pfaueninsel, by Thomas Hettche.

***

GALERIE KARSTEN GREVE | COLOGNE, GERMANY

ARTISTS: Cy Twombly, Lucio Fontana, Louise Bourgeois, Jannis Kounellis, John Chamberlain


ESTABLISHED: 1973

INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Paris, France; St. Moritz, Switzerland

CONTACT: galerie-karsten-greve.de; info@galerie-karsten-greve.de; +49 221 257 10 12

KARSTEN GREVE, OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


I studied law and art history in Cologne, Lausanne, and Geneva and started my career as an art dealer and publisher in 1969.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

Observing and reflecting for a while, not spontaneously. [I’m excited about] Claire Morgan and Frank Walter.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

Joel Shapiro, in Cologne.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Frank Walter at Ingleby Gallery.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

The rediscovery of Minimal art and Arte Povera.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

Entomologist.

***

GALERIE MAX HETZLER | BERLIN, GERMANY

ARTISTS: Günther Förg, Albert Oehlen, Bridget Riley, Thomas Struth, Rebecca Warren

ESTABLISHED:
1974

INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Paris, France

CONTACT: maxhetzler.com; info@maxhetzler.com; +49 30 34 64 97 850

SAMIA SAOUMA, PARTNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


Out of a true passion for art that I wanted to share and a strong desire to be close to artists. This was a while ago, in Paris, before I met Max.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

Through exhibitions, art fairs, being already familiar with the work but for some reason never having approached the artist earlier. And also through our artists.


What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Jeff Koons at David Zwirner in New York.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?


Today regions don’t mean as much as yesterday, as it is such a global art world.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?


A writer?


If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

A Poussin painting.

***

GALERIE THOMAS SCHULTE | BERLIN, GERMANY

ARTISTS: Alice Aycock, Gordon Matta-Clark, Alfredo Jaar, Jonathan Lasker, Allan McCollum


ESTABLISHED:
1991

CONTACT: galeriethomasschulte.de; mail@galeriethomasschulte.de; +49 30 20 60 89 90

THOMAS SCHULTE, OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

In 1987, as director at John Weber Gallery in New York, after previously working as a consultant in the position of an assistant curator at MoMA.


What was your biggest show of the past year?

Michael Müller’s “Was nennt sich Kunst, was heisst uns wahrsein?”


What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?


Suzan Frecon at David Zwirner.


What trend do you see happening in your region right now?


Less hype.


What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?


Musician or architect, perhaps, but I am happy to be
what I am.


Name the last great book you read, art-related
or otherwise.


Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red.


If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?


Perhaps Parmigianino’s Self-Portrait in Convex Mirror.

A special summer issue of Modern Painters, which will be published in installments on ARTINFO this week, surveys the world’s best galleries, across six continents and 36 countries. Throughout the issue you’ll hear from 50 of the most influential gallery owners and directors, discussing their achievements and envies, the artists they have their eye on, and the regional trends affecting this increasingly international market. Below you’ll find Q&As with gallerists based in Iceland, Finland, and The Netherlands. To see other installments from the special issue, click here.

I8 GALLERY | REYKJAVIK, ICELAND

ARTISTS: Olafur Eliasson, Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Kristján Guðmundsson, Janice Kerbel, Ragnar Kjartansson


ESTABLISHED: 1995

CONTACT: i8.is
info@i8.is; +354 551 3666

BOERKUR ARNARSON, OWNER AND DIRECTOR

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

By being supportive of my mother when she started the gallery. Although I was involved from the start, I didn’t take over until 12 years later.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

The same way I guess everyone does, by seeing shows and visiting artists. We’re doing a show in November with Arna Ottarsdóttir, a young Icelandic artist who works with textiles, to mark our 20th anniversary.


What was your biggest show of the past year?

Ragnar Kjartansson’s four installments of his video work Me and My Mother. It’s a work he has done every five years since 2000, where his mother, actress Guðrún Asmundsdóttir, spits on her son.


What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?


I just saw some stunning works by Joachim Bandau at Galerie Thomas Fischer in Berlin.


What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

A woodworking farmer who cooks for a living.

***

GALERIE FORSBLOM | HELSINKI, FINLAND

ARTISTS: Stephan Balkenhol, Secundino Hernández, Jason Martin, Bjarne Melgaard, Reima Nevalainen


ESTABLISHED: 1977

CONTACT: galerieforsblom.com; info@galerieforsblom.com; +358 9 680 3700

FREJ FORSBLOM, DIRECTOR

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


Following in my father’s footsteps.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

When you travel a lot, you see lot. But lately we are extremely interested in our young discovery Reima Nevalainen, whom we found in Helsinki.

What was your biggest show of the past year?


Bjarne Melgaard’s “Puppy Orgy Acid Party.”

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other thanyour own?

Jeff Elrod’s “Rabbit Ears” at Luhring Augustine, in New York.


What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

Painting has still a very strong role, and I feel it will be even stronger in the future. There are always other media alongside painting, which are now and then trendy, or less trendy, but painting has always had a strong role.

***

GRIMM | AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

ARTISTS: Charles Avery, Matthew Day Jackson, Letha Wilson, Desiree Dolron, Matthias Weischer

ESTABLISHED:
2005

CONTACT: grimmgallery.com; info@grimmgallery.com; +31 20 675 2465

JORG GRIMM, OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

The first show was a works-on-paper exhibition with George Condo, whom I had met in New York while he was making a film called Condo Painting. His galleries, Simon Lee and Sprüth Magers, were very generous in allowing me to do the show in Amsterdam, and George came over for it, and we had a great time—even though my gallery space at the time looked more like a run-down factory floor than a working gallery space.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


I saw a great print project happening in a corner of a New York print shop once. The artist wasn’t there, but the printer arranged a studio visit for me, and that’s how I met Matthew Day Jackson. My latest “discovery” is Letha Wilson, whose work I saw in a group show curated by Yuta Nakajima and Madeline Warren.


What was your biggest show of the past year?


A tie between Matthew Day Jackson’s and Atelier van Lieshout’s solo exhibitions.


What trend do you see happening in your region right now?


There’s a cut-back on public-arts funding going on that could be damaging if sustained in the long term.


What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

That’s a fun question. I would be a film producer—there are a lot of similarities between doing that and being a gallerist, I think.

Justin Adian, sporting a prodigious and suitably metal-approved beard, is telling me about the death of former Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell. The band, like the artist, hails from Texas; Dimebag was infamously murdered in 2004 during a live performance in Ohio. That assassination — and the ensuing wake, during which Eddie Van Halen honored the fallen musician by laying his own custom guitar in the coffin — obliquely inspired “Razor Back,” a wall-mounted sculpture of canvas-wrapped foam whose stark red-and-white geometry conjures a kind of plush, tactile Suprematism. Each of the pieces in Adian’s latest solo, on view at Skarstedt in New York through October 24, seems to born of a similar melange of influences: Autobiographical, pop-cultural, art-historical. “Slip It In,” which resembles a piano in which the white keys have been replaced with taffy, is a subtle homage to Raymond Pettibon’s classic logo for the band Black Flag.

Adian’s sculpture is simple in its construction: Hunks of ester foam atop shaped planks of wood, with canvas or drop-cloth stretched over the foam and then covered with many layers of paint traditionally used for boat or automobile exteriors. He traces the genesis of this format to an encounter with the contorted-foam works of John Chamberlain; after seeing one of them at David Zwirner, he started experimenting with a piece of discarded foam he found on the street in Chinatown. (“This was before everyone was freaked out about bedbugs,” he noted.) Those early trials were unsuccessful. “I thought: The language I’m most comfortable with is painting, so lets stretch some canvas over the foam,” he recalled. “I was thinking about rumble-seats in hotrods. And then the next ones looked like cushions. They were quirky, and took on narratives of their own.” While working at a gallery, Adian began mining materials that would otherwise end up in the trash. “I was using drop-clothes, scrap from crates, plywood,” he said. “It blew me away how much we throw away in the art world. This stuff still has utility, so why get rid of it?”

The resulting work typically conjures a parade of associations in the critical imagination, often tinged with a certain nostalgia or child-like edge: Candy, diner booths. In a typical Adian piece, two or three shapes engage with each other — mushed, stacked, intersecting, clinging, cozying up. The anthropomorphic associations are intentional; Adian says he does think of the shapes as a type of character, and a 2014 show at Skarstedt in London was named “Strangers,” as if the sculptures depicted chance meetings. This exhibition is titled “Fort Worth,” after the town in Texas where the artist lived until the age of 18. (He left for college at the University of North Texas and then moved to New York, where he’s had a home for 15 years.) Certain sculptures directly engage with the Lone Star State: “Storm Front,” a cool grey-and-blue abstraction, was born from childhood memories of watching weather systems make their way over the landscape’s flatness; “I-85,” two distended, noodle-like forms wedged into a corner, are meant to mimic the titular highway, which runs from North Dakota down to Austin. Other aesthetic elements point to personal associations, Texan or otherwise, like the inexpert “trashiness” of speedboat paint-jobs.

In Adian’s hands, the everyday and mundane is mingled with the legacies of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. He first became interested in creating sculptures that occupy a room’s corner after seeing one such work by Fred Sandback, which showed him “how easy it is to occupy two walls with a slight gesture.” The visible, vertical seam of a drop-cloth wrapped around foam reminds the artist of a “prefabricated Barnett Newman zip.” Adian’s understanding of art was cultivated during visits to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, where he engaged with work by Ellsworth Kelly, an obvious influence — though Adian answers Kelly’s flatness with a lumpy rotundness; his sculptures almost beg to be poked. This is abstraction oddly humanized: Quasi-sentient geometries, going places. The artist perceives the works as capturing “a very specific moment in a story — right after something happens,” he said. Aidan borrows from Minimalism but eschews cool detachment. He gestures toward a small sculpture on the wall: A bulky mass in baby blue, shaped somewhat like an upside-down Oklahoma, bearing down on a smaller grey rectangle. Both forms are puckered around their edges, the canvas bunching as it was pulled taut. “This,” Aidan explained, “is really about two people feeling each other.”

A special summer issue of Modern Painters, which will be published in installments on ARTINFO this month, surveys the world’s best galleries, across six continents and 36 countries. Throughout the issue you’ll hear from 50 of the most influential gallery owners and directors, discussing their achievements and envies, the artists they have their eye on, and the regional trends affecting this increasingly international market. Below you’ll find Q&As with one gallerist based in Toronto. To see other installments from the special issue, click here.

DANIEL FARIA GALLERY | TORONTO, CANADA

ARTISTS: Shannon Bool, Douglas Coupland, Iris Häussler, Mark Lewis, Kristine Moran

ESTABLISHED: 2011


CONTACT: danielfariagallery.com; info@danielfariagallery.com; +1 416 538 1880

DANIEL FARIA, OWNER/DIRECTOR

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

I worked at a regional museum, then decided to pursue my M.A. in art history, which led to working at a commercial gallery in Toronto. I knew after being there a short time that it was what I needed to do.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

I look at art as much as possible, at both emerging and established artists. Relationships build over time, which leads to group shows, solo shows, and representation. Many times other artists and collectors will also tell me I should look at certain artists they think I will respond to.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

We had a solo show of new work by Douglas Coupland that coincided with a museum survey show that was shown jointly by the Royal Ontario Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. That was a big moment for the gallery this past year.


What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

“In the Studio” at Gagosian was remarkable for its ambition, and Ad Reinhardt at David Zwirner was life-affirming. These were next-level exhibitions.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

Lots of galleries are moving to larger spaces and consolidating in the neighborhood right around my gallery. There wasn’t much here when I moved in four years ago, but it’s great to have helped create a new dynamic art hub in Toronto.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

Dog walker.

If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

A Mark Manders sculpture!

One jacket has inspired 32 photographs that will all be on show, and for sale, in a private exhibition that will benefit The American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).

They depict Moncler’s iconic Maya duvet jacket in various scenarios — worn by a ballerina in one and a cat in the other; reappropriated as garbage bags; or as an absent-minded prop while strolling in a naturalist, woodsy landscape.

The images in the exhibition, titled Art For Love, were lensed by some of the world’s greatest photographers, including David Bailey, Patrick Demarchelier, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Bruce Weber, and Annie Leibovitz, to name just a few, and curated by Fabien Baron.

The aim of the show is to convey “love as the bedrock of life for all human beings,” said Moncler, and to examine the strength and beauty of that emotion from different and sometimes contrasting points of view, all while focusing on a single object.

“If you want to see what the top photographers are doing today, all of them together in one place: it’s all right here in more than thirty distinct images freely interpreting the Moncler jacket,” said Baron.

Proceeds from the sale of the photographs, which will be held via silent auction on September 11 in New York, as well as on Paddle8.com, will go toward funding the ‘Countdown to a Cure’ project, which aims to find a cure for AIDS by 2020.

“We’re grateful to Moncler for involving some of the world’s best photographers in this outstanding project,” said amfAR’s CEO Kevin Robert Frost. “In addition to raising funds for AIDS research, I hope that the ART FOR LOVE exhibition will inspire others to support amfAR and the fight against AIDS.”

To view some of the images in "Art For Love," click on the slideshow.

A special summer issue of Modern Painters, which will be published in installments on ARTINFO this month, surveys the world’s best galleries, across six continents and 36 countries. Throughout the issue you’ll hear from 50 of the most influential gallery owners and directors, discussing their achievements and envies, the artists they have their eye on, and the regional trends affecting this increasingly international market. Below you’ll find Q&As with seven gallerists based in New York. To see other installments from the special issue, click here.

ACQUAVELLA GALLERIES | NEW YORK, U.S.

ARTISTS: Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Lucian Freud, Wayne Thiebaud


ESTABLISHED: 1921


CONTACT: acquavellagalleries.com; info@acquavellagalleries.com; +1 212 734 6300

ELEANOR ACQUAVELLA, CO-OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

My first job in the art world was at the Phillips Collection, where I worked for a summer during college under then-director Charlie Moffett. I absolutely loved it, and I decided that I wanted to work with and around art for the rest of my life. After college I worked at Sotheby’s in various departments. After two years had passed, my father and I both felt it was time for me to start my career at the gallery.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

Usually, our discoveries begin with us as collectors—we purchase and live with artists that are new to us and then see how their careers and work develop over time. For example, Jacob El Hanani is an artist I discovered at a works-on-paper fair, and I bought one of his drawings on the spot. I purchased a few more over the years, and that relationship culminated in the show we have up now.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

Probably the show of Basquiat drawings from the Schorr Collection.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?


Martin Puryear at Matthew Marks.

If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

I could spend hours and hours thinking about this… I guess I would say a Matisse. I couldn’t imagine a better way to start the day.

***

CHEIM & READ | NEW YORK, U.S.

ARTISTS: Louise Bourgeois, Joan Mitchell, Lynda Benglis, Jack Pierson, Jenny Holzer, Ron Gorchov


ESTABLISHED: 1996


CONTACT: cheimread.com; gallery@cheimread.com; +1 212 242 7727

JOHN CHEIM, CO-OWNER/HEAD OF EXHIBITIONS

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

I studied as a painter at the Rhode Island School of Design, and after moving to New York City in 1977, I began to work at another newly formed gallery, where I soon became director and stayed for 20 years. I grew more excited by the art of others than by my own.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

I have long been interested in work by artists who have been overlooked or neglected. That’s how I came to be involved with Louise Bourgeois, Alice Neel, Joan Mitchell, Lynda Benglis, and Ron Gorchov. Recently I’ve been excited by the work of the Israeli-born Tal R. A protean talent that is not interested in a “career.”

What was your biggest show of the past year?

One of the most important exhibitions of last year at our gallery was “Joan Mitchell: Trees.” She is one of the greatest painters ever—by way of Van Gogh, Cézanne, and on into pure abstraction. She’s similar to Twombly in the way that she bridges Europe and the States.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?


A recent trend has been a focus on abstraction. It’s disdained by some as “zombie formalism,” but I love it. Abstraction—like pure music—will always be a language I want to hear.

***

DAVID ZWIRNER GALLERY | NEW YORK, U.S.

LEADERSHIP: David Zwirner

ARTISTS: Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Marlene Dumas, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama

ESTABLISHED:
 1993


INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: London, U.K.


CONTACT:
davidzwirner.com;
+1 212 727 2070

KRISTINE BELL, SENIOR PARTNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

In my first year in New York, in 1998–99, I worked for both a very small gallery, Feigen Contemporary, and a very large gallery, Pace Gallery. In that year I learned many nuances about the primary market and the secondary market. I fell in love with the idea of making historical exhibitions in a commercial gallery. This led me to David Zwirner, and in 2000 we opened Zwirner & Wirth.

What was your biggest show of the past year?


Richard Serra’s Equal has surpassed all of our expectations. We were excited to open an exhibition of a new major work, but the reality of this sculpture has created a sublimely unique experience for the gallery and the visitors. We are thrilled that it was recently acquired by MoMA.


What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

I thought the David Hammons exhibition at White Cube, London, was brilliant. We see so little of his work that I always run directly to a show when there is one. This exhibition did not disappoint; it was rigorous, resolute, and memorable.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?


We see a wider and younger audience for Minimalism emerging. Young collectors are gravitating to artists like Donald Judd and John McCracken more and more. These artists have shaped the way we look at architecture and design, so it’s not surprising that today’s collectors enjoy living with great examples of these artists’ work.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

Since the age of five, my life has revolved around art. I cannot imagine any other life, to be honest.


Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.

I thought Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch was one of the most captivating stories in recent years.

***

JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY | NEW YORK, U.S.

ARTISTS: El Anatsui, Nick Cave, Hayv Kahraman, Kerry James Marshall, Carrie Mae Weems


ESTABLISHED:
 1984

CONTACT: jackshainman.com; info@jackshainman.com; +1 212 645 1701

JACK SHAINMAN, PRESIDENT

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

I was fortunate enough to have parents who exposed
me to art at a young age, including taking me to see the great collector Lawrence Bloedel at his home. These types of experiences, and growing up with the Clark in my backyard, hugely impacted my career ambitions. Money from my bar mitzvah and from a little horse trading I did as a teenager were the funds that helped
me start the gallery.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

We are very excited about El Anatsui’s solo exhibition “Five Decades,” at our upstate location, the School, in Kinderhook, New York, which will be up through September 26.


What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?


“Picasso & the Camera,” curated by John Richardson at Gagosian, was superb.


What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

Our goal from the very beginning has been to exhibit, represent, and champion artists from around the world, including artists from Africa, and I think museums and galleries are starting to pick up on the importance of recognizing and working with artists based in the region.

Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.


Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art, by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo.

***

MARY BOONE GALLERY | NEW YORK, U.S.

ARTISTS: Ai Weiwei, Peter Halley, KAWS, Barbara Kruger, Peter Saul


ESTABLISHED:
 1977

CONTACT: maryboonegallery.com; +1 212 752 2929

MARY BOONE, OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

As a secretary at Bykert Gallery. I started in September 1970.


Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


Judith Bernstein and Angela Bulloch.


What was your biggest show of the past year?

KAWS’s 18-foot-high sculptures.

***

MNUCHIN GALLERY | NEW YORK, U.S.

ARTISTS: David Hammons, Donald Judd, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly


ESTABLISHED: 1993

CONTACT: mnuchingallery.com; contact@mnuchingallery.com; +1 212 861 0020

ROBERT MNUCHIN, FOUNDER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


My passion for collecting transformed from buying to selling, but it started
with a true passion for the works. Whether buying art as a collector or selling it as a dealer, you have to love it first and foremost.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

I keep my eyes and ears open, and sometimes you see an artist who sparks a particular interest. We recently had a show of Kazuo Shiraga that I was very excited about. While he’s not a new artist, he was new to a majority of the American public. His works are as fresh today as the day they were painted.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

“Casting Modernity: Bronze in the XXth Century.”

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

I really enjoyed “Richard Serra: Vertical and Horizontal Reversals” at David Zwirner.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

The continuation of Asian artists, both
old and new, in gallery exhibitions and at auction. The art world is global, and I think that we’ll be seeing a lot more in terms of international artists and buyers on the market.


What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?


I might be a landscape architect.


Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.


Not the last, but a great book—De Kooning: An American Master. I had the opportunity to meet de Kooning in his studio when I was first beginning to collect and saw his works at the ground level. It was an amazing time for art in New York and for art history.


If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

I’m pretty happy with what we have there now. I think we’ll keep it.

***

SEAN KELLY GALLERY | NEW YORK, U.S.

ARTISTS: Marina Abramovic ́, Los Carpinteros, Antony Gormley, Joseph Kosuth, and Kehinde Wiley

ESTABLISHED: 1991


CONTACT: skny.com; info@skny.com; +1 212 239 1181

SEAN KELLY,OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

I went to art school and became an artist. Subsequently I worked in museums and then as an independent curator. It was a natural next step for me to establish my own space.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

I make it a priority to always be out looking, especially when I travel, which is a lot. That’s how we discovered Sun Xun. On a trip to Beijing, we spent several days visiting local galleries; Sun Xun’s was the last exhibition we saw. We knew immediately that we wanted to work with him.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

Many of the galleries who helped transform Chelsea into a major art hub are being priced out of the neighborhood. They’re moving to spaces in different areas of the city—just as we did in moving to Hudson Yards in 2012—where they can continue to afford to experiment and take chances.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

I suppose I would either be an architect, an author, or a farmer… or better yet, all three at the same time!

If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?


It would be an Egyptian artifact at the Met called Fragment of a Queen’s Face. It’s made of yellow jasper and dates back to before 1300 B.C.

A special summer issue of Modern Painters, which will be published in installments on ARTINFO this month, surveys the world’s best galleries, across six continents and 36 countries. Throughout the issue you’ll hear from 50 of the most influential gallery owners and directors, discussing their achievements and envies, the artists they have their eye on, and the regional trends affecting this increasingly international market. Below you’ll find Q&As with six gallerists based in the U.S. To see other installments from the special issue, click here.

BALDWIN GALLERY | ASPEN, U.S.

ARTISTS: Jim Hodges, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tony Oursler, Carroll Dunham, Pat Steir

ESTABLISHED: 1994

CONTACT: baldwingallery.com; baldwingallery@baldwingallery.com; +1 970 920 9797

RICHARD EDWARDS, OWNER

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

We tend to work with established artists.


What was your biggest show of the past year?

This past year was our 20th, and we are proud of the wide range of artists and types of work that we exhibited.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Matthew Ritchie’s “Ten Possible Links” at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, last fall.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

With the opening of the new Aspen Art Museum and the continuing concentration of serious collectors in this area, Aspen is becoming a more important venue for contemporary art.


What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?


I was a lawyer living in New York and London who specialized in international litigation and who also collected contemporary art.

Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.


Bad Boy, by Eric Fischl.


If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

I have a Tom Sachs duct tape Mondrian, and I would not mind a real Mondrian to pair with it.

***

IMAGO GALLERIES | PALM DESERT, U.S.

ARTISTS: Vik Muniz, Rachel Lee Hovnanian, William Wegman, Tom Wesselmann, Jennifer Bartlett

ESTABLISHED: 1991


CONTACT: imagogalleries.com; info@imagogalleries.com; +1 760 776 9890

LEISA AUSTIN, OWNER/PRESIDENT/GALLERIST

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

As an art consultant.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?

I’m absolutely loving every single series and work that Rachel Lee Hovnanian creates, from photography and video to installation and neon to sculpture and assemblage. I could eat, drink, and sleep—dream about—her work.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

Hovnanian’s Perfect Baby Showroom [in “Plastic Perfect”] and “Pictures of Cars (After Ed Ruscha),” by Vik Muniz.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Laurie Simmons’s “How We See” [at the Jewish Museum in New York].


What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?

Architecture and design. I love the process of building.

Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.

Paul Ruscha’s Full Moon. I spent 45 days in an RV last summer, and the highlights ranged from ArtCrush in Aspen to a magical night in Winslow, Arizona, with Paul.


If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Monkey. No question! I don’t even have to think about it!

***

JESSICA SILVERMAN GALLERY | SAN FRANCISCO, U.S.

ARTISTS: Hugh Scott-Douglas, Ian Wallace, Julian Hoeber, Dashiell Manley, Susanne Winterling
ESTABLISHED:
2008

CONTACT:

jessicasilvermangallery.com info@jessicasilvermangallery.com +1 415 255 9508

JESSICA SILVERMAN, OWNER/DIRECTOR

How did you get your start as a gallerist?

My grandparents were serious FLUXUS collectors, and I used to play with the art as a toddler. Then after going to art school, I did a master’s in the curatorial practice program at the California College of the Arts. During the course, I did a residency at the Frankfurt Kunstverein and ran a project space on the side.

How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


I recently started representing Nicole Wermers, a German artist based in London who is nominated for the Turner Prize. I loved her work at first sight when I saw it at Frieze London, particularly the way it rethinks everyday objects, and included her in a group show two years ago.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

“Meta Masculin/Féminin,” a solo exhibition by the “god-father of Vancouver photoconceptualism,” Ian Wallace.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Adrian Rosenfeld hosted a wonderful show of Wyatt Kahn at a one-off space in Los Angeles in March.


Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.

Sarah Thornton’s 33 Artists in 3 Acts, a must-read for anyone in the art world.

***

REGEN PROJECTS | LOS ANGELES, U.S.

ARTISTS: Lawrence Weiner, Jack Pierson, Liz Larner, Lari Pittman, Elliott Hundley

ESTABLISHED: 1989


CONTACT: regenprojects.com; office@regenprojects.com; +1 310 276 5424

SHAUN CALEY REGEN, PRESIDENT/OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


I started out as a writer working for publications like Flash Art, Elle, Interview, and Financial Times. I moved to L.A. in 1989 and met Stuart Regen shortly thereafter. He was planning to open a gallery, and we decided to work together, opening the gallery in 1989. He hired me to be his director, and I’ve been in the art business ever since.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


We have given a number of our artists their first solo gallery shows—Matthew Barney, Toba Khedoori, Catherine Opie—and we have also worked with artists like Elizabeth Peyton or Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin when they were early in their careers, as well as with many international artists who hadn’t had much exposure on the West Coast: Wolfgang Tillmans, Sergej Jensen, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Gabriel Kuri, Gillian Wearing, Manfred Pernice, John Bock, Willem De Rooij, and more.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?


It’s exciting to see so many international art people moving to Los Angeles. Artists, collectors, dealers, and writers. It’s apparent that the dialogue is only getting greater and more complex.

Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.


William N. Copley’s Reflection on a Past Life.

If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom?

Alighiero Boetti’s painting Stiff Upper Lip.

***

SUSANNE VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES PROJECTS | LOS ANGELES, U.S.

ARTISTS: Nicole Eisenman, Charles Gaines, Andrea Bowers, Rodney McMillian, Wangechi Mutu


ESTABLISHED: 2008


CONTACT:
vielmetter.com;
info@vielmetter.com;
+1 310 837 2117

SUSANNE VIELMETTER, OWNER

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


I worked for seven years in a small gallery in Los Angeles and then worked with emerging artists for another year before I leased a tiny storefront space. The money I earned during that year was my start-up money, so my gallery started out very modestly—but financially independent. In the beginning, I did everything myself, from installing to picking up the phone to packing a crate to ship to an art fair.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


From the beginning, it was important to me that my program be relevant to the cultural reality I saw in Los Angeles—and that meant that I wanted my program to be diverse and to reflect a balance in the number of male and female artists I worked with. Because I had my children very early in life and because I am not from this country, I’ve always operated kind of independently and not as part of a peer group. To me, it made sense to look at artists who I felt had something interesting to say and who were maybe overlooked or outside the mainstream. A new artist to the program whom I am especially excited about is Sadie Benning, whose work we featured at the gallery at the beginning of the year.


What was your biggest show of the past year?


My most ambitious installation was
Edgar Arceneaux’s recent solo exhibition, “A Book and a Medal: Disentanglement Equals Homogenous Abstractions.” The exhibition was composed of an extensive site-specific installation which included the presentation of his recent film and took place in the two largest galleries.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

The exhibition “From All Sides: Tan- saekhwa on Abstraction” at Blum & Poe last September.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?

It seems that many New York artists are considering Los Angeles to be a vibrant and stimulating environment to move to for good. It’s no surprise that so many new and established international galleries and other art professionals are following. I think that the discourse among artists in L.A. is often more radical and centered around the ideas of the work, less around career moves and the market. Los Angeles has a long history of this discourse, and it’s very much alive at the art schools here. It permeates the general conversation on every level: at the galleries, in the studios, at the museums, among the critics. I am very excited that more artists from the East Coast and abroad are recognizing this and feel that the art scene here is to be taken seriously.

Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.

The Complete Stories, by Flannery O’Connor—a book that was recommended to me by my youngest daughter.

***

KAVI GUPTA | CHICAGO, U.S.

ARTISTS: Glenn Kaino, Mickalene Thomas, Jessica Stockholder, Tony Tasset, Roxy Paine

ESTABLISHED: 2000


INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Berlin, Germany

CONTACT: kavigupta.com; info@kavigupta.com; +1 312 432 0708

KAVI GUPTA, OWNER/DIRECTOR

How did you get your start as a gallerist?


I started as a collector following in my family’s interest in contemporary Asian art; however, after continuing my studies in art history and marrying my wife, who is an art historian and contemporary curator, it became clear to me that my passion for building the careers of artists was where my future lay.


How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?


This is what our gallery is known for, and we pride ourselves on this. We are looking for artists all over the globe and attend exhibitions continually. We have just debuted the work of Indian contemporary artist Manish Nai in one of our Chicago galleries, and we are extremely excited about his work, which mixes a very formal, Postminimal practice with strong narratives tied to the culture of the country.

What was your biggest show of the past year?

“Mickalene Thomas: I was born to do great things.” This extremely ambitious exhibition, which was two years in the making, was honored to win the AICA award for best exhibition in a commercial space nationally.

What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own?

Roxy Paine’s exhibition debuting his wooden diorama works at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York.

What trend do you see happening in your region right now?


There is a strong emphasis on looking at artists producing with a collaborative or social practice in the Midwest of the United States. Places such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago—places formerly on the fringe but now producing artists with a very strong narrative and view on the human condition, removed from commercial complications that exist for artists working in larger U.S. cities.

What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?


Running an artist residency or foundation, or restoring and collecting prewar and postwar European rare automobiles.

Undaunted by Brazil’s current economic slowdown and political scandals, organizers of ArtRio are bringing the five-year-old fair back to the cidade maravilhosa September 9 through 13. Art+Auction senior associate editor Sara Roffino talked to Ana Letícia Fialho, author of The Contemporary Art Market in Brazil, which is issued annually, about her findings and expectations.

What are some of the key findings from the 2014 report?
The Brazilian economy was very slow in 2014. People were pessimistic and fearful, so the first surprise is that in spite of the negative context, half of the galleries included in the report did better business in 2014 than they did in 2013. Even in a year that was not good from a general economic point of view, it was not bad for the art market.

There was a reported 11 percent decrease in sales at SP-Arte in April. Do you see this as a sign of a market contraction?
Maybe it’s not expanding as fast as it was for two or three years, but this is more of a settling down and finding a level of sustainable growth. It’s natural that small modulations would happen.

Noticeably absent from this edition of ArtRio are Gagosian and Pace galleries, and White Cube just announced that it is closing its São Paulo location. What does this mean for the Brazilian market?
We’ve always had a strong national market. That international galleries are not coming to the art fairs in the same numbers as in previous years doesn’t really have an impact on the Brazilian galleries. The base of the business is this national market, which is healthy.

How are young galleries faring, compared with more established ones?
Young galleries are actually growing the most, attracting the new collectors. The extension of the market is not happening at the top, but within the young, more affordable range. The galleries that showed some difficulties in 2014, compared with previous years, are those in the middle.

In the 2013 report, gallerists cited high taxes as the biggest impediment to market development. What was the impact of taxes in 2014?
The tax regulations for the art market are the same as the regulations that apply to anything else. That’s the conversation the Brazilian Association of Contemporary Art is trying to have with the government — for art to be seen as its own sector, with regulations that would enable the art market to develop in a better way. 

A version of this article appears in the September 2015 issue of Art+Auction.

Marc Benda, a partner in the Friedman Benda gallery, which will now focus exclusively on design from the 20th century to the present, is teaming up with Thorsten Albertz, a former director of Friedman Benda, to found Albertz Benda, a gallery devoted to contemporary visual arts. The new venture, which opened on September 10 with a show featuring the work of Bill Beckley, occupies a separate space in the same Chelsea building as Friedman Benda.

“The two rosters, design and art, have grown to a point where they became two programs trapped in a single structure,” says Benda. “In order to service the artists and their collectors better, we saw the need to provide room for each discipline to grow.”

An additional space on the ground floor of the same building will serve as a project room for both galleries; starting September 12, performances by Agathe Snow will complement Albertz Benda’s programming.

Meanwhile, the work of design legend Ettore Sottsass will be on view at Friedman Benda September 10 through October 17.

A version of this article appears in the September 2015 issue of Art+Auction.

September 8 through 14, China’s most populous city welcomes artists, dealers,
 and collectors for the inaugural edition of Shanghai Arts Week, one more step in the city’s evolution as a rival to Beijing as a national go-to art center. Two fairs—Photo Shanghai and the West Bund Art and Design Fair—offer both young and experienced collectors the opportunity to purchase works from a wide range of international artists and designers, broadening the potential for these markets in China. Simultaneously, the Art in the City Festival presents exhibitions and events for families and art lovers in venues throughout the city.

Photo Shanghai
SHANGHAI EXHIBITION CENTER
September 10 – 13
Tapping into China’s emerging photography market, the World Photography Organisation presents the inaugural edition
 of Photo Shanghai, with
 50 galleries showing vintage
 and contemporary images from
 more than 500 artists. Taka 
Ishii Gallery, Magnum Photos, 
and Gagosian Gallery all have 
booths, and daily talks between 
artists and experts in the field will accompany book signings, performances, and panel discussions. One
 session considers photography in international museums, another is designed especially for first-time collectors, and a third session features the Wall Street Journal Magazine’s photography director, Jennifer Pastore, on the magazine’s approach to documenting artists.

West Bund Art and Design Fair
WEST BUND ART CENTER
September 8 – 13
Returning to Shanghai’s rapidly developing riverfront, the second edition of the fair presents 30 national and international galleries and design agencies in a restored aircraft factory. Under the direction of Chinese contemporary artist Zhou Tiehai, the event’s first edition was a resounding success, attracting international blue-chip galleries such as Hauser & Wirth, Pace, and Sadie Coles HQ; all are returning to the fair, along with a roster
of design firms that includes Atelier Deshaus and One Design Inc.

Art in the City Festival
CHI K11 ART MUSEUM, K11 ART MALL
September 11 – 14
Sponsored by several government agencies in collaboration with collector Adrian Cheng’s K11 Art Foundation, art in the city is a wide-ranging celebration of art in shanghai, with both analog and digital ways to participate. Tours of the city’s cultural venues, a smartphone app, a digital video and interactive project competition, and collaborations with emerging artists are on offer. The exhibition “Stop Making Sense” at the K11 Art Mall presents the work of emerging Chinese artists in an exploration of the relationship among artists, the living environment, and change.

A version of this article appears in the September 2015 issue of Art+Auction.