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, GERMANYARTISTS: Cecily Brown, Sarah Lucas, Daniel Richter, Tal R, Dana Schutz, Gert & Uwe TobiasESTABLISHED: 1994CONTACT: cfa-berlin.de; gallery@cfa-berlin.de; +49 30 28 87 870NICOLE 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, GERMANYARTISTS: Angela Bulloch, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno
ESTABLISHED: 1989CONTACT: estherschipper.com; office@estherschipper.com; +49 30 37 44 33 133ESTHER SCHIPPER, FOUNDER AND OWNERHow 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, GERMANYARTISTS: Adrian Ghenie, Victor Man, Ciprian Muresan, Navid Nuur, Serban SavuESTABLISHED: 2005INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Cluj, RomaniaCONTACT: plan-b.ro; contact@plan-b.ro; +49 30 3980 5236MIHAI POP, CO-FOUNDERHow 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, GERMANYARTISTS: Martin Eder, Carsten Nicolai, Olaf Nicolai, Neo Rauch, David SchnellESTABLISHED: 1983CONTACT: eigen-art.com; berlin@eigen-art.com; +49 30 28 06 605GERD HARRY LYBKE, OWNERHow 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 new discoveries 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, GERMANYARTISTS: Cy Twombly, Lucio Fontana, Louise Bourgeois, Jannis Kounellis, John Chamberlain
ESTABLISHED: 1973INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Paris, France; St. Moritz, SwitzerlandCONTACT: galerie-karsten-greve.de; info@galerie-karsten-greve.de; +49 221 257 10 12KARSTEN GREVE, OWNERHow 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, GERMANYARTISTS: Günther Förg, Albert Oehlen, Bridget Riley, Thomas Struth, Rebecca WarrenESTABLISHED:
1974INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS: Paris, FranceCONTACT: maxhetzler.com; info@maxhetzler.com; +49 30 34 64 97 850SAMIA SAOUMA, PARTNERHow 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, GERMANYARTISTS: Alice Aycock, Gordon Matta-Clark, Alfredo Jaar, Jonathan Lasker, Allan McCollum
ESTABLISHED:
1991CONTACT: galeriethomasschulte.de; mail@galeriethomasschulte.de; +49 30 20 60 89 90THOMAS SCHULTE, OWNERHow 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.
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