Gallery Portrait
Esther Schipper

by Christian Ganzenberg

From the outset, Schipper was eager to exhibit “ephemeral and time-based conceptual projects” in order to create “spaces for discourse.” Berlin, an artists’ city burgeoning in the nineties, provided a welcome, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In 1995, she opened a second gallery space on Auguststraße, completely relocating to Berlin shortly thereafter. A period full of freedom and experimentation followed, during which the gallery operated more like a platform than a commercial venue. By showcasing discourse-provoking exhibition projects and specially commissioned works, series of talks, and the occasional happening, she constantly prompted her artists—including Pierre Huyghe, Thomas Demand, and Ugo Rondinone—to develop new bodies of work.

The Berlin hype subsided in the early 2000s and the gallery scene became increasingly established. After moving to Linienstraße, the gallery began to make a name for itself outside Berlin. This was a result of its ability to skillfully combine challenging conceptual exhibitions with commercial success. Furthermore, Schipper founded an initiative in 2004 with a group of Berlin colleagues that has since been emulated in many international cities: the Gallery Weekend Berlin. The idea of bringing out-of-town collectors to the city for a weekend of enthralling, top-notch exhibitions across different gallery spaces remains compelling to this day.

At the beginning of the following decade, the gallery moved to a bel étage on Schöneberger Ufer. In 2015, Schipper boldly undertook a unique, then unprecedented step: she took over the gallery of her Berlin colleague Jörg Johnen and its roster of artists. Shortly afterwards, in order to present her expanded roster, she opened new spaces in the former Mercator Höfe. Working with Annabelle Selldorf and s1 Architekten (Berlin), a former print shop and warehouse on Potsdamer Straße was specially renovated into a spacious, elegant “white cube.” The space has made it possible for two exhibitions to be held at the same time, offering additional room for a bookshop. “The previous gallery spaces made themselves very present. This challenge was also deliberate, because most artists conceive site-specific exhibitions, responding to their immediate time and place. After almost 30 years, I felt the need to work with spaces that were much less present, more changeable, and which can practically disappear. The exhibition spaces on Potsdamer Straße are like that: they seem to change with every exhibition and always look different.”

Schipper owes the gallery’s steady growth to her thoughtful, considered approach, her cosmopolitan nature, and her aesthetic judgment. “In her case, the fortune of not belonging to a place or a country,” Heinz-Norbert Jocks once wrote, “is correlated with the freedom of an open-minded view of conceptual art from all over the world.” Schipper currently represents around 45 artists and estates, and the gallery’s roster continues to grow.

The gallery’s presence is no longer limited to Berlin, but extends to many places around the world. Esther Schipper has realized that today a good eye and a good programme are not enough; a global presence is essential for an international gallery. It is necessary to participate in major art fairs, while attributing equal importance to (pop-up) projects in new locations and digital platforms, online formats, and an active social media strategy.

Schipper’s biography has come full circle with the gallery’sexpansion into Korea and Taiwan, given that she was born in Taiwan to Dutch and French parents. “It’s like stepping back into a familiar place that I only half-remember. Supporting the gallery’s artists in Asia feels a little bit like introducing friends to my parents.”