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.
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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.
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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.
