Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/112443
FAIREST OF THE FAIR Founder, owner and director, Various Small Fires, L.A. CHIARA BADINELLA JOE REIHSEN ESTHER KIM VARET JOE REIHSEN Dallas Art Fair reaches the five-year marker this spring. Where to begin to navigate the 80-plus booths brimming with cutting-edge fare from the must-see artists you need to know? Catherine D. Anspon engages in a national and international t��te-��-t��te with four game-changers, whom touch down next month from Milan, Paris and L.A. Why are they coming to Dallas? Read on. (Save these Fair dates and prepare to collect: Preview Gala, Thursday, April 11; Friday through Sunday, April 12 ��� 14; at Fashion Industry Gallery; dallasartfair.com.) Co-founder, co-owner and sales director, Brand New Gallery, Milan TAKE US TO THE BEGINNING.�� Fabrizio [Affronti] and I met at university where we both studied the History of Art. We shared a strong passion for art and our dream was to open an art gallery ��� joint efforts, and here we are! VISION? ���I���M EXCITED ABOUT DALLAS! AND TO INTRODUCE JAY STUCKEY, WHO���S AS BIG AND BOLD AS TEXAS.��� ��� ANAT EBGI, ANAT EBGI GALLERY, L.A. Esther Kim Varet Dallas Art Fair is a renowned international art fair. Our intent at this point of our career is to build up an important audience made up of collectors, press, fans and trend followers. We are keen to grow and augment our visibility and contacts. We strongly believe Dallas Art Fair can help us carry out our mission. CORENTIN HAMEL Fabrizio Affronti, Chiara Badinella Founder, owner and director, Anat Ebgi, L.A. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND VARIOUS SMALL FIRES, L.A. TAKE US TO THE BEGINNING. Anna Sew Hoy���s Gold Worms, 2010, at Various Small Fires, L.A. COURTESY THE ARTISTS AND NEW GALERIE, PARIS AND NYC I���m excited about Dallas! And to introduce Jay Stuckey, who���s as big and bold as Texas. For the Fair, I will be presenting a solo booth of Jay Stuckey���s recent drawings and paintings. Jay is currently working on a series of drawings of musician friends smashing their instruments.�� YOUR GALLERY���S AESTHETIC: WHAT NICHE DOES IT OCCUPY AMID THE ART ECOLOGY OF L.A.? Corentin Hamel, Marion Dana, Nicolas Beaumelle TAKE US TO THE BEGINNING. [Marion Dana] and I met 10 years ago in Rue Louise Weiss in Paris, which was then a very interesting place, where galleries like Air de Paris, Galerie Jennifer Flay, Galerie Perrotin, Art Concept were developing something all together. We developed a desire for collaboration from this time forward. Marion had been working first for museums, then for Galerie Kreo, for an important French collector and for Sotheby���s. I have a more curatorial and academic background. Ori Gersht���s Blow Up No. 7, 2007, at Brand New Gallery, Milan WHAT DREW YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DALLAS ART FAIR 2013? Co-founder, co-owner and co-director, New Galerie, Paris and New York WHAT DREW YOU TO THE DALLAS ART FAIR 2013? [Being admitted into New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA)] was a definitely a huge break. But the most memorable experience was placing Jesse Fleming���s video The Snail and the Razor in the Whitney Museum���s permanent collection. Young and smart. For more dish with Anat Ebgi, tap papercitymag.com. WHAT DREW YOU TO THE DALLAS ART FAIR 2013? We cannot reveal our secrets or there will be no surprises left! I can tell you we will be bringing Ori Gersht, Folkert de Jong and Anton Henning. For more from Milan, visit papercitymag.com. ANAT EBGI BIGGEST BREAK? To exhibit international artists in Italy for the first time. Our objective is to contribute to the renovation of the Italian art scenario, bringing new artists in Italy, informing and sensitizing the public. CAN YOU REVEAL ANY SURPRISES IN YOUR BOOTH? I born and raised in Dallas and spent K-12 (in uniform!) at Trinity Christian Academy. When I was a senior in high school, I had one summer where I interned at Pillsbury Peters Fine Art in Dallas for one month and then PaceWildenstein Gallery in New York for the other. Boy were they different! I learned invaluable experiences from both, and from then on ��� I guess I always knew I would be a part of the gallery system in one way or another. For more dialogue with Esther Kim Varet, peruse papercitymag.com. Being a daughter of an artist who ran his own very successful art gallery has informed a lot of my choices. I grew up in Miami and moved to New York City to study at the New School. I was curating exhibitions in various galleries before receiving my master���s degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. I was working with a lot of artists in NYC, and when I moved to Los Angeles in 2008, I wanted to continue working with them, so I opened the gallery.�� Anat Ebgi poses with Joe Reihsen���s airbrush wall Jay Stuckey���s Orgy, 2012, at Anat Ebgi, L.A. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND BRAND NEW GALLERY, MILAN TEXAS CONNECTIONS?�� TAKE US TO THE BEGINNING. MARK HANAUER After graduating from Yale University in 2004, I worked for major New York City galleries like Petzel and Paula Cooper before opening my own gallery at the age of 24 in a ground-floor space in West SoHo. While running the gallery, I was also doing a full time Ph.D. in contemporary art at Columbia University (which was a bit much, to be honest!). I sold my shares in the gallery right before the recession hit in 2008, which saved my life ��� and bank account! It was an incredible learning experience. I still continued with the Ph.D. and started curating and fund-raising for biennials in New York, started a company that built corporate collections in Asia and started collecting art myself. I moved to Los Angeles two years ago because all of a sudden the world started watching the young art scene in Southern California with much invested interested. And it was absolutely true ��� there are so many amazing artists out here, and the city was so welcoming for ambitious new spaces that were willing to provide a fresh platform for artistic talent.�� �� We Are The Painters��� ���De la Neige en Et����� installation view (detail) at Art Center: Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France, 2011 The Fair���s co-founder [Christopher Byrne] contacted us and explained what he wanted the Dallas Art Fair to be and to become. We found it very interesting. Our gallery friends who have already participated also told us the Fair is very good. Since we opened our new space in New York, we think it is important to discover more of the USA. In this sense, we will have participated this year to fairs in Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Dallas. It is also interesting to discover these different cities and cultures. CAN YOU REVEAL ANY SURPRISES FOR YOUR BOOTH? We are going to do a solo presentation by a duo of French artists: We Are The Painters. Since the beginning of the gallery, we have only done solo or duo presentations in art fairs. It seems to us that it gives a clearer purpose to the artist and the gallery ... The conversation continues at papercitymag.com.