Maria Stenfors by Maria Stenfors: In Conversation

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Maria Stenfors with the work by Julia Pfeiffer, Animal Vessel (Figure of the Thinkable), 2013. Photo: M-KOS

Maria Stenfors inaugurated in April 2010 her eponymous gallery in East Central London, and for the last three years, her space has steadily grown to present an innovative program of artists. Her gallery has now been chosen by ArtInfo as one of the Top 10 space of the Art13 London art fair, which launched its first edition last March. During our recent visit to London, M-KOS took the opportunity to interview Maria Stenfors herself.

M-KOS [MKOS]: Can you tell us about your current exhibition?

Maria Stenfors [MS]: We are currently showing works by a Berlin based artist, Julia Pfeiffer, entitled “Figures of the Thinkable”. The show has to do with ‘possibilities’, exploring what has happened, what could have and what should have, happened. Clay or ceramics is the material for her investigations. At every stage, when the clay is wet, dried, fired and glazed, each reveals different possibilities. She has a symbiotic practice of ceramics and photography. In these black and white photographs, she sets a mise-en-scène to arrange the ceramics in different stages. Opposite of these photographs, there are a set of ceramic relief, fired and grazed. On the other side, there is a wall of clay. The clay was delivered dry from the artist’s studio in Berlin, soaked in water, applied onto the wall, then again it became dry and even cracked. The one wall presents a refined quality, the other is totally raw and the photographs show the different stages that create interesting dialogues between the three walls. Julia is one of our core gallery artists that has been with us from the beginning, and this is her second solo exhibition with us.

MKOS: Can you walk us through the logistics of your exhibitions program?

MS: We do seven exhibitions a year. Each exhibition lasts about six weeks, plus the days for installing, which of course depend on what kind of shows you do. Between exhibitions, we have gaps of up to two weeks that include contingency days. For example, for this exhibition, the artist wanted to apply wet clay directly onto the wall. Clay is a living material so that we never know what would happen.

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Julia Pfeiffer, installation view, Figures of the Thinkable, 2013. Courtesy of Maria Stenfors, London

MKOS: Has that formula worked well for you so far?

MS: It’s been good. Opening up my own gallery was a daring headlight. When I opened it three years ago, I didn’t realise that how much focus was going to come to myself because my name was on the door. I guess I was a little bit naïve in that sense. Of course people focus on the artists but at the same time I wasn’t prepared to see any focus on me, and that was difficult at the beginning to find the balance between talking about the gallery and the artists. That was something that I wasn’t trained to do. I could do my job making exhibitions and selling work and so on but I had never been so much focused on myself. I just wanted to make fantastic exhibitions. Now I have Nathan [Jenkins] who’s been working with me for over one year and it works very well. We are good team and a good balance towards the artists.

MKOS: How many artists do you currently represent?

MS: We have six artists. Five female and one male.

MKOS: Five to one. Is that just a coincidence?

MS: Pure coincidence. I didn’t even think about it. I decide upon not only the artists’ work but also the personalities I interact with, and I didn’t realise until much later that I was over-representing women, which is quite unusual in the art world. [laugh] It was not my ambition or statement but I just wanted to present fantastic art.

MKOS: Do you keep looking for new artists?

MS: We’re constantly looking for new artists and I try to do quite a lot of studio visits. Also, we get emails, get introduced, get some tips from other people and so on. We follow up and look at things.

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Julia Pfeiffer, Installation view from “Figures of the Thinkable” 2013 at Maria Stenfors, London. Photo by M-KOS

MKOS: Do any artists come to show their work directly to you?

MS: Yes, sometimes, but it doesn’t really work that way. When an artist show his/her work to me saying “I think my work would look great in your gallery” without seeing any exhibition before or knowing about my gallery, it doesn’t show the gallery much respect.

For artists, of course the most important thing is the work but also the chemistry between the gallery and the artists is very important. If we can’t talk about art, business and many other issues, it simply doesn’t work. This is why it always takes a long time for me to sign a new artist because I have very long conversations with them beforehand. I’m actually in conversation with an artist at the moment and it has been going on for nearly six months. We need to have good dialogues and we make sure that there is trust between us. It may happen or it may not happen but that’s also OK. It is important to go through this process to understand both parties are aiming for the same thing. Misunderstandings are unhealthy, they don’t create good exhibitions.

MKOS: You also worked with curators or artists from your gallery to curate other shows…

MS: Last year, we did a lot of group exhibitions. After the first year or year and a half, I felt we did a lot of solo shows. But there were a couple things that I wanted to address in the program. “Chase of Grace” curated by our gallery artist Martin Gustavsson is one of them. Usually when we set up the show, there are only two to three people doing it: me, Nathan, the artist and maybe one extra helper. It’s very intimate situation. Out of casual conversations about the exhibitions, artists and so on, we end up googling a lot which is also another opportunity to know about new artists. I then proposed to Martin if he could put a show together of artists that inspires him at this very moment in time, not yesterday or not tomorrow but just now. That’s how “Chase of Grace” came about. I also worked with Chris Fite-Wassilak who curated “Ha Ha Crystal” in April 2011 but I didn’t feel the dialogue of the exhibition had quite finished so I asked Chris to do another show: “LtA… a subtitle”, which was at the end of last year. Between the two shows, he set up a Facebook page for online image exchange with three other artists to continue the dialogue [the page is now closed]. From this online exchange, new images were created that were seen in “LtA… a subtitle”. These kinds of things, some quite experimental, have happened a lot last year.

Now this year we are doing a lot of solo exhibitions, three gallery artist solo shows back to back this spring. (Mela Yerka in January, Julia Pfeiffer in March, Martin Gustavsson in April)

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Installation view from “Chase of Grace” 2012 at Maria Stenfors, London. Courtesy of Maria Stenfors, London

MKOS: When I first visited your gallery over two years ago, I thought the location was a little isolated although you have Gagosian not too far from here.

MS: There are also Laura Bartlett, Rokeby, Domobaal around here. When I started there were less galleries in this area than now. But if you look at the gallery map around this area [EC1 & WC1 London postcodes] you can see there are quite a few around. Besides, since Central St Martin’s [College of Arts and Design] moved to Kings Cross and also Slade [School of Fine Art] is not too far either. Many art students come to see the exhibitions. So it has changed a lot for the last couple of years and more things are happening now in this area.

MKOS: You participated in the art fair, Art13 London last week [1–3 March 2013]. How did it go?

MS: It was fantastic.

MKOS: Was it the first art fair in which you participated?

MS: As Maria Stenfors, yes. And it was the first edition of London 13 as well. We had a very good position for our booth. We presented three female artists, Astrid Svangren, Mela Yerka and Julia Pfeiffer and quite a different mix of works. We had very good responses.

MKOS: Were there many visitors?

MS: Lots! We were standing the entire fair, on our feet talking all the time.

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Maria Stenfors’ booth at Art13 London, March 2013. Courtesy of Maria Stenfors

MKOS: Will you try more art fairs in the near future?

MS: Yes definitely. But I think if we want to present not only new works but also good quality and exciting work, the artists need enough time to prepare for that. So it’s not something that we are rushing massively, like participating in numerous art fairs, one to the next. I want to focus on the having the gallery, making sure we are open when it should open, making good exhibitions, doing what the gallery should be doing at first.

MKOS: Recently, a few US blue chip galleries opened a branch in London such as David Zwirner, Pace, Ben Brown Fine Arts to attract collectors from the Middle East, Russia, India, China who don’t necessarily travel to US to buy art. At the same time, smaller to middle range galleries, Poppy Sebire, for example, closed its door. How do you see these changes in the London art scene?

MS: I don’t know yet. I think for art, 2013 has started incredibly strong especially for big institutions: Rosemarie Torockel at Serpentine, Duchamp et al at the Barbican which is amazing, Gerard Byrne at Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lichtenstein at Tate Modern, Schwitters at Tate Britain and so on. Some are blockbuster exhibitions but they are all the must-see shows. Of course, we’ve seen tough periods financially, not so much for blue chip galleries but for smaller to middle sized ones, however, they still do some ambitious shows. Also, not far from where I live, which is away from the main art quarters, artist collectives opened small spaces to do interesting projects. So I think, even though it is not an easy time, there are still lots of exciting things happening. There are many good exhibitions and I feel a lot of positive, creative energy around. ■

Interviewed by Miwa Kojima

Maria Stenfors
Unit 10, 21 Wren Street,
London WC1X 0HF
mariastenfors.com

Opening hours
Tuesday – Friday 11h00 – 18h00
Saturday 11h00 – 15h00
Or by appointment.

Current exhibition: Julia Pfeiffer “Figures of the Thinkable”, through 6 April 2013.

Upcoming exhibition: Martin Gustavsson “Indentations”, 26 April – 1 June 2013,
Opening: Thursday 25th April, 18h30 – 20h30

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Image courtesy of Martin Gustavsson and Maria Stenfors, London

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