A special summer issue of Modern Painters, which will be published in installments on ARTINFO throughout 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 six gallerists based in France. To see other installments from the special issue, click here. ART: CONCEPT | PARIS, FRANCEARTISTS: Michel Blazy, Ulla von Brandenburg, Jeremy Deller, Jacob Kassay, Adam McEwen ESTABLISHED:
1992CONTACT: galerieartconcept.com; info@galerieartconcept.com; +33 1 53 60 90 30OLIVIER ANTOINE, FOUNDERHow did you get your start as a gallerist?
I don’t know. It’s in my genes, I think. I can’t control them.
How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about? There are many ways to discover a new artist—through research, friends, other artists, professionals. I’m starting to work with an 80-year-old artist whom I knew before but didn’t expect to work with. His name is Jean-Michel Sanejouand. We’re preparing a kind of retrospective exhibition for the opening of our new space this fall.
What was your biggest show of the past year?I would say the one we did with Ulla von Brandenburg was extraordinary. The gallery walls and ceiling were covered with fabric, which created the illusion of an upside-down house. The entire space was used to create little rooms. In one of them, a film was projected, titled Die Strasse.What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own? Pierre Huygues at Hauser & Wirth.
What trend do you see happening in your region right now?Deconstructed sculptures and figurative paintings.What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?
I might be an archeologist or carpenter.Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.
Le courage de la vérité, by Michel Foucault— good to read if you’re an artist or a politician.***GALERIE AGNES MONPLAISIR | PARIS, FRANCEARTISTS: Olga de Amaral, Marcos Coelho Benjamim, Todd & Fitch, Iuri Sarmento, Daniel HourdéESTABLISHED: 1987
CONTACT: agnesmonplaisir.com; galerie@agnesmonplaisir.com; +33 1 56 81 83 51AGNES MONPLAISIR, FOUNDERHow did you get your start as a gallerist?
I was raised in a rather art-free home, with my father, a banker, and my mother, a teacher of history. However, a family friend took me to see a Monet exhibition as a young teenager, and his paintings truly inspired me to follow a different path than that of my parents. Since we did not agree on my career path, I left home at 17 and did not speak with my family for two years. It was during that time that I opened my very first space, a small gallery based in Paris’s Bastille district.
How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?
I always have my eyes and ears open, as you never know whom or what you may happen upon! Also, since I do engage in quite a bit of travel, I am able to tap into a worldwide cultural database, where I often find the most unique and untouched “gems.” One artist I was able to forge a long-lasting relationship with and love for is Olga de Amaral.What was your biggest show of the past year?
That would have to be our artist Daniel Hourdé’s exhibition “Paradise in Progress.” Held in Brazil’s Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Belo Horizonte, it showcased several of his exceptional works of sculpture.What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own? Sebastião Salgado’s photographic exhibition “Genesis” was immensely inspiring to me.What trend do you see happening in your region right now?In general, I like to stay out of the “trend,” so to speak, as I am more drawn to the ethereal and to classics that truly stand the test of time. However, many of my artists are talking about the preservation of the planet and spiritual ideas about human civilization, and I do see this movement as having a large potential for growth.***GALERIE LELONG | PARIS, FRANCEARTISTS: Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, Sean Scully, Ana Mendieta, Jaume Plensa
ESTABLISHED: 1981INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: New York, U.S.CONTACT: galerie-lelong.com; info@galerie-lelong.com; +33 1 45 63 13 19JEAN FREMON, CEOHow did you get your start as a gallerist?In the early ’70s, I was a writer, and I used to go to galleries and museums all the time. Jacques Dupin, a noted poet and art historian and then-director of Galerie Maeght, asked me to join the team at Maeght in 1973. Then Dupin, Lelong, and myself took over the gallery, which became Maeght-Lelong in 1981 and Galerie Lelong in 1987.How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about? Gallerists are often proud of having “discovered” such and such. It is pure vanity. Artists are working to make themselves visible by any means; whenever a dealer can help them and be helped by them, this what can be called discovery. Etel Adnan, for instance, was a friend for many years before the world started to look at her work, [but] it was only then that I asked her to join the gallery.What was your biggest show of the past year?Etel Adnan in 2015.What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?If I were not a gallerist, I would be a writer, or a lawyer, or both at the same time—one job for the day, another one for the night.Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.Don Quixote.If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom? A pope by Francis Bacon.***GALERIE POLARIS | PARIS, FRANCEARTISTS: Yto Barrada, Louis Heilbronn, Khaled Jarrar, Bouchra Khalili, Nigel RolfeESTABLISHED: 1989
CONTACT: galeriepolaris.com; contact@galeriepolaris.com; +33 1 42 72 21 27BERNARD UTUDJIAN, DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER
How did you get your start as a gallerist?When I was 24, I passed all my time visiting galleries and museums, and I decided to open my fist gallery in a small space of 20 square meters on a small street in Paris.How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?All the artists had their first exhibition with me—first exhibition in Paris or in Europe or, for most of them, their first exhibition in a gallery. Most of them came to meet me. They knew how I worked, and I think they liked the reputation of the gallery. Yto Barrada had her first gallery exhibition at Polaris in 2000, and the very young American photographer Louis Heilbronn has already had his two first one-man shows with us.What was your biggest show of the past year?Khaled Jarrar, with his exhibition “Gently I press the trigger.”
What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own? Bouchra Khalili’s “Wet Feet Dry Feet.” Bouchra understood perfectly well how to use the gallery’s space.Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.
Chris Burden, by Fred Hoffman, and Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom? Certainly a painting from Philip Guston.***PRAZ-DELAVALLADE | PARIS, FRANCEArtists: Jim Shaw, Sam Durant, Amanda Ross-Ho, Analia Saban, Philippe DecrauzatESTABLISHED:
Mid 1990sINTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Brussels, BelgiumCONTACT: praz-delavallade.com; +33 1 45 86 20 00BRUNO DELAVALLADE AND RENE-JULIEN PRAZ, CO-FOUNDERS AND OWNERS How did you get your start as a gallerist?The founding of our gallery is due to the encounter between someone passionate about art history and a novice collector. With a lot of naïveté but with immense passion, we decided to create this gallery despite our lack of experience.How have you generally discovered new artists? Are there any new discoveries for the gallery whom you’re especially excited about?It is always a great excitement to discover new artists, and then a wonderful adventure to work with them. We remember
our first encounters with Jim Shaw, Sam Durant, and Marnie Weber, and more recently with Analia Saban, Matthew Brandt, Matthew Chambers, Joe Reihsen, and Ry Rocklen. Thanks to family links, we’ve had a longstanding commitment to the L.A. art scene.
What was your biggest show of the past year?Analia Saban, “Outburst.”What’s one show you loved in the past year at a gallery other than your own? “John Baldessari: Early Works” at Marian Goodman, Paris.What trend do you see happening in your region right now?
A new generation of young and passionate collectors is emerging. Social networks opened up to a new sphere this intriguing world of contemporary art. It is so rewarding for us to deal with these new and motivated collectors. They’re so aware of the new trends. The world is broader and closer at the same time.What might you be doing if you weren’t a gallerist?
Curator and writer.
Name the last great book you read, art-related or otherwise.La Saga Maeght, by Yoyo Maeght, and Defining Contemporary Art: 25 Years in Pivotal Artwork, one of Phaidon’s most vibrant editions.If cost were no object, what work of art would you have in your bedroom? An Egon Schiele and/or a Robert Ryman.
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