Berlin’s Galerie Mehdi Chouakri will take a “short-term pause from exhibitions,” the gallery mentioned in a publish to its 14,000 Instagram followers.
“After virtually thirty years of gallery work, with round 200 and fifty formidable exhibitions at varied places in Berlin, the time has come to mirror on how this work may finest be continued sooner or later,” the publish reads. “To be able to take into account this fastidiously and with due calm, the gallery will probably be taking a short lived pause from exhibitions.”
“My choice is for very private causes,” mentioned Chouakri in an electronic mail to ARTnews. “As you realize the normal main market mannequin requires increasingly time and vitality, and I need to dedicate extra of my time to the individuals near me.” The gallery might mount one other exhibition as quickly as this fall, he mentioned.
Chouakri says that gross sales in recent times have been “stable,” although he has famous “some hesitation and slower decision-making from collectors,” including that an exhibition of Bernd Ribbeck’s on the Berlin house of Rudolf Zwirner “was almost offered out,” whereas an exhibition of gallery artist Saâdane Afif on the Hamburger Bahnhof “was very nicely obtained, and we had been in a position to place a number of works, with others reserved by two museums.”
Chouakri notes that the gallery’s work will proceed with the estates it represents (Hans-Peter Feldmann, Charlotte Posenenske, and Peter Roehr), as will its work with the deceased artists Martin Disler and Salvo. For its residing artists, the gallery will search “constructive collaboration with significantly valued and trusted colleagues and mates.” These artists embrace Philippe Decrauzat, Sylvie Fleury, Lothar Hempel, Mathieu Mercier, and Gerwald Rockenschaub.
One collaboration has been finalized and will probably be introduced Friday, the seller mentioned.
Set up view, John M Armleder at Mehdi Chouakri Gallery, 2025.
He notes that a number of artists have museum exhibitions underway, which he’ll proceed to assist, together with John M Armleder on the Musée d’Artwork et d’Histoire in Geneva, N. Sprint on the Hill Artwork Basis in New York, and Fredrik Værslev at Chicago’s Neubauer Collegium and the Oldenburger Kunstverein.
The gallery has two places in Berlin, at 61 Fasanenstrasse and 60-72 Kopenhagener Strasse. The seller will preserve each “in the meanwhile,” he mentioned, primarily for personal displays.
The pause comes after a bruising yr for artwork galleries in 2025, with sellers closing up their outlets together with Tim Blum (Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo), Adam Lindemann (New York), Clearing (New York and Los Angeles), and Claudia Altman-Siegel (San Francisco). Different galleries retrenched, together with New York’s Tanya Bonakdar, who closed her Los Angeles outpost; New York’s Sean Kelly, which stopped mounting reveals in L.A.; and Almine Rech, who briefly closed her London gallery, whereas sustaining eight different places, from New York to Shanghai.
