Gallery Portrait
BQ
by Beate Scheder
If the quality of a gallery is measured by the length of its relationships with its artists, then Jörn Bötnagel and Yvonne Quirmbach from BQ are doing something right. The best example is Dirk Bell: the gallerist couple got to know the artist in the mid-1990s. Jörn Bötnagel was scouring art academies in search of young painters for an exhibition at Monika Sprüth Gallery when he met Dirk Bell in Braunschweig. “We thought to ourselves at the time, ‘If we do something ourselves someday, then the first exhibition will definitely be with Dirk.’” That’s how Jörn Bötnagel tells the story today.
Our first exhibition space in a porter’s lodge, a modest 8 square meters.
Exhibition view from outside: Bojan Sarcevic “It Seems That An Animal Is In The World As Water In The Water“, BQ, Cologne, Wormser Strasse 23, 1999
But in actual fact they were already doing something at that point. It all started in Cologne in 1995, not yet under the name BQ, but as Jörn Bötnagel Projekte. Yvonne Quirmbach was still studying graphic design, and Jörn Bötnagel had just taken a job at Monika Sprüth’s gallery. By 1997 there had been four of these temporary projects. In 1998, a small space—the porter’s lodge—became available in the rear courtyard of the Sprüth Gallery. It became the BQ project space. The first exhibition was a collaboration between Matti Braun and Heike Beyer—then Dirk Bell was indeed next, together with Friedrich Kunath, followed by Richard Wright and Bojan Sarcevic. Except for Kunath, all of them are still with BQ today. “We just started looking around us with curiosity back then. We didn’t have the idea of starting a gallery yet.”
By looking around, they mean selecting artists, which for them remains more intuitive than strategic. “Besides their work, we are also interested in the artists’ personalities; we aren’t in the first instance thinking about our gallery program or about wanting to cover certain artistic positions.”
The story really started to gain momentum in the new millennium. In 2000, BQ participated in their first art fair, Art Cologne. In 2002, they opened their first gallery space in a small store on Jülicher Straße in Cologne. A year later, BQ was invited to take part in Art Basel. They used the opportunities that these fairs offered in their own unique way: as “large solo exhibitions.” After all, the booths often had more floor space than their gallery.
Our first gallery space in Cologne, at least 24 square meters.
Exhibition view: Matti Braun „ATOL“, BQ, Cologne, Jülicher Strasse 14, 2008
The first two years in Berlin we only held exhibitions in temporary spaces.
Exhibition view from outside: Alexandra Bircken „Alles muß raus!“, BQ, Berlin, temporary exhibition space Walter-Benjamin-Platz 3, 2009
The gallery has been situated in Berlin since 2009 and on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz since 2011. They took their time selecting a permanent venue after the move, initially roaming around their new city as a nomadic gallery. The main gallery space is now complemented by the project space QBBQ’s, which is located just a few steps away on Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse.
Since 2011 we are located in Weydinger Strasse at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. In 2014 Richard Wright covered the facade of our gallery with hand-painted posters for his 12-month long exhibition.
Exhibition view from outside: Richard Wright „Nine Chains To The Moon (Chapter 1)“, BQ, Berlin, Weydinger Strasse 10, 2014-2015
The day-to-day work at the gallery is of paramount importance for BQ, both as a social venue and as a workshop where their artists’ ideas are put into practice. Many of the artists had their first exhibition there while they were still students. This was the case for Raphaela Vogel, for example, as well as for Leda Bourgogne and Mara Wohnhaas. “We find the best way to go far together is from the very beginning.” For them, this exchange with the artists creates a sense of euphoria that in turn drives their everyday work.
Exhibition view: Raphaela Vogel „Ich gebe euch eine Verfassung“, BQ, Berlin, Weydinger Strasse 10, 2016
Exhibition view: Dirk Bell „Café No No“, BQ, Berlin, Weydinger Strasse 10, 2016
From the beginning, we have held annual “zu Gast bei BQ” exhibitions with people who do not come from an art context per se. Here it was people from the Volksbühne who moved into our gallery with a “Kommunalka/Kommune”.
Exhibition view: Irina Rastorgueva and Thomas Martin „Kommunalka 55“, BQ, Berlin, Weydinger Strasse 10, 2018
Since 2016 we have rented a project space at Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 15, which we painted black and built a bar into. Our artists use this space sometimes as a studio, and we organize music evenings, opening “parties” and dinners there and occasional we hold exhibitions with our artists. During this year’s Gallery Weekend we will present Leda Bourgogne here.
Exhibition view: Carina Brandes, QBBQ’s (BQ’s project space), Berlin, Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 15, 2020