Why We Do What We Do
group show

12 SEP until 1 NOV 2025
Opening – 11 SEP 2025, 6-10 pm

This September, the gallery turns 15 and to mark the occasion, we’re opening our anniversary exhibition Why We Do What We Do on September 11 during Berlin Art Week.

In the lead-up to the show, we’re launching a special eightweek online program celebrating the gallery’s story, our vision, and the people who have shaped this journey. To kick things off, I sat down with Kate BrownSenior Editor at Artnet and co-host of The Art Angle podcast—for a conversation about how it all began.

Last year, I could hardly believe it when I realized the gallery is turning 15. 15 years! So much has happened, and yet, the time has flown by.

Courtesy of the artist and the gallery.

When the gallery turned 10, we were in the midst of the pandemic, and now, five years later, the world still feels heavy with uncertainty and turmoil. At times, it seems like we’re moving backwards, as if we’ve forgotten How to Human, the title of our anniversary exhibition in 2020.

At the beginning of this year, I wasn’t sure if it was the right moment to celebrate. How can we, when there’s so much suffering and injustice in the world?

But the more I sat with it, the more I felt that this is exactly the time when art matters most, and I wanted to share Why We Do What We Do.

With the gallery, I wanted to create a space to connect to one another and foster genuine engagement. A place for art that allows room for tenderness and reflection in a world that often pushes us to stay numb or distracted.

Art is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Creating, showing, and sharing art is a way of caring for the world. Through art, we build empathy, community, and resilience. That is why I do what I do.  

And that’s why I decided to celebrate this year, not despite the pain in the world, but because of it. Because gathering around art, around artists, around ideas, is one way we hold each other through it all. It’s how we stay human.

Courtesy of the artist and the gallery.

I want to celebrate this journey of what the gallery has become, the community we’ve built, the incredible artists I have the privilege to work with every day, and the support I’ve received from my team, my friends and family, and most of all, from my husband Philip and our son Phoenix.

Thank you to everyone who has been traveling with us. Let’s celebrate what art can do.

Yours,
Tanja*