10 march 2023, Manuela Klerkx
The gallery of... Marieke Severens
In the section 'The gallery of…' we talk to a host gallerists from the Netherlands and Belgium: how (and when) did they start their gallery, what has changed in the art world since, what is their gallery’s profile, what do they collect themselves, and how do they see the future of the gallery world? In this part it’s Marieke Severens (PontArte, Maastricht)
We’re you exposed to art while growing up?
Definitely! From an early age my parents took me to museums and galleries. My parents started buying art in the early eighties, especially from young, local artists. I was often allowed to visit artists' studios and found it fascinating to see all that art up close. Now, years later, I understand how special those visits were. After all, not all parents have an interest in the visual arts, and those who do usually do not share it with their children as intensively as my parents did.
How did you come into contact with the art world?
In 1990 I started my studies Arts and Culture Studies at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. This brought me into direct contact with the art world. Incidentally, looking back on it now, more with the institutions than with the artists. After my studies, I started working as an executive secretary at the Noord-Brabants Museum. After that, I worked at the Rijksmuseum for two and a half years as a sponsorship and external relations officer. I then transitioned to the corporate world, with jobs at ING and HP. During that period of about fifteen years, I was really only active as a 'consumer' in the world of art and culture. In 2002 we moved to Barcelona and over time I started my own gallery. So, looking for local artists and visiting the galleries, I dived fully into the art world again.
With my work in the Noord-Brabants Museum and the Rijksmuseum I was of course very close to art, but I never worked in a gallery before I started my own pop-up gallery in Barcelona in 2013.
How would you describe your gallery’s profile?
Open, diverse and accessible. I am aware of the 'high threshold' that a gallery has for many people and that is why I intend to approach it differently. I have opted for a space that invites you to come in and look, instead of a closed and imposing space. In addition, we regularly organise artist talks and workshops to show people what we do. In addition to the open character of the gallery, I work with a diverse range of artists: from international and established names to young(er) and local artists.
As a gallery owner without staff, I like having to do and arrange everything myself: from selecting artworks in a studio, to the logistics related to transport and from fairs to art sales and cleaning the gallery after an opening. Yet, the contact with people who are interested in art, whether buyers or artists, is the most beautiful: the joy on the faces of people who buy a work that really touches them, or the glint in the eyes of an artist who tells about his/her new works are priceless.
To broaden my horizon and to continue to actively search for new opportunities, I work together with a number of galleries abroad. For example, I feel related to Rubrecht Contemporary in Wiesbaden, a gallery with which I regularly collaborate. We do art fairs and organise exhibitions together under the name Rubrecht Severens Fine Arts. I also enjoy working with Tasneem Salam from Tasneems Gallery in Barcelona/Berlin. Her years of experience in the gallery world and her way of working are a great example to me.
Besides the artists associated with the gallery, I would like to represent Anselm Kiefer. I have never met him and can only rely on his work that I first saw at 'La Grande Parade' in 1985 in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The sight of the work 'Innenraum' that hung at the top of the stairs in the museum made such an impression on me at the time that it still seems great to me to show his work. There is a 'but' when it comes to representing artists. I only work with artists with whom I have been able to build a relationship of trust over time and for whom collaboration is also very important. If an artist and I don't click in that sense, I find it difficult to represent him/her. Thankfully, this usually pans out right…
What has changed in the art world since you took your first steps?I feel like I'm just getting started, although I can already celebrate the gallery's 10th anniversary in December. When I started, the gallery world - especially in Spain, where we lived and worked at the time - was still recovering from the economic crisis. Many galleries had closed their doors or moved their activities to locations outside the city. I then started with a pop-up gallery, i.e. a gallery without a fixed location. In the beginning, we mainly organized exhibitions of 1 to 2 days in varied places and with a lot of attention for children, workshops, artist talks, etc.
Since September 2018, we are no longer based in the Barcelona region, but in the centre of Maastricht with a fixed location. I think that in addition to the increasing focus on pop-up exhibitions, fairs and online communication, the physical gallery space remains very important. A gallery is and remains the ideal place to see art in real life.
What / whose work do you collect yourself?
I usually buy very intuitively. That can be work by my own artists, but often also by other promising artists. For example, last year I bought work by Sjaak Korsten, Dorien van der Ploeg, Ben Leenen, Htein Lin and Robin de Puy. At the moment 'Ode to Love Letters' by Marta & Slava is on my wish list, however, the gallerist in me would also like to see this work end up in an important art collection.
I see the future very positively. I expect that people will take more time to search for and enjoy visual art. As I said, the best place to do that is a gallery. Within the gallery world we must strive for more mutual cooperation and more visibility online and offline.
Galleries, at least outside the Randstad and certainly in the South of the Netherlands, are often seen as elitist. By participating in initiatives such as the Maastricht Gallery Weekend, but also by participating in fairs, you expand your network hoping that potential buyers will also find their way to the gallery. I also think that the gallery world will become an even bigger mix of online and offline activities that do not so much compete as reinforce each other.
