It was the early 1990s, and something was happening in Stockholm. The city’s art scene felt small and very local. When it came to institutions, the few smaller but publicly funded art spaces were extremely important. At the larger institutions, there was neither the knowledge nor the fervour to support a younger generation of artists. Actors such as Public Art Agency Sweden kept commissioning the same artists as in the 1970s.
The time that followed was really a boom. A new generation of gallerists stepped forward to work with emerging artists on the cusp of their careers, but with nowhere to go. Within a couple of years, the Stockholm art world transformed from a giant baby boomer bottleneck into a vibrant and internationally influential scene.
Young commercial galleries like Andreas Brändström and Charlotte Lund, and alternative spaces such as Ynglingagatan 1, Enkehuset, and Konstakuten (The Art Emergency Room) may have had different philosophies, but outwardly they formed a common front. In 1994, a group of the new gallerists founded Stockholm Smart Show, an alternative to the more established Stockholm Art Fair. The same year, artists organised New Reality Mix, a video and performance weekend. Rirkrit Tiravanija, soon to be proclaimed the star of relational aesthetics, came and made Thai meatballs. It was groundbreaking.
While many of the new galleries that sprung up during these salad days have since relocated or closed, the first one remains. In 1991, Ciléne Andréhn and Marina Schiptjenko opened their gallery in Stockholm’s Norrmalm district, where artists such as Carin Ellberg, Peter Hagdahl, and Katrine Helmersson found a natural home. And where, for example, Jake and Dinos Chapman were shown for the first time in Sweden. Today, the gallery is located on Linnégatan near Östermalmstorg. In 2019, Andréhn Schiptjenko also opened a Paris branch, with new premises on rue Chapon as of last year. I met the two gallerists for a conversation about the past and the present at their Stockholm space, on one of the few occasions these days when they were in the same city.
Milou Allerholm: You opened the gallery in 1991. What was the art scene in Stockholm like when you started? You had both worked at other galleries before. How did you come to work together?
Marina Schiptjenko: I first worked at the gallery Konstruktiv Tendens. Then Ciléne recruited me to work at the Arton A Gallery, but I was only there a few months before the owners decided to close the gallery.
Ciléne Andréhn: So then of course we thought, what are we going to do now? We had a group of artists with us, so we started a company and cycled around looking for space. Now, we’ve been working together for thirty-two years, and we’re close on every level. But, at the time, we didn’t know each other very well. We weren’t two friends starting a gallery. We met through art and got to know each other through working together.
MS: We were united by an interest in conceptual art, among other things, where a lot was going on. The exhibition Implosion at the Moderna Museet in 1987, with artists like Jenny Holzer and Sherrie Levine, and the subsequent debate about postmodernism were also influential. More women artists were emerging onto the art scene. Another specific thing that happened was that contemporary art began to move between different disciplines. One moment, you could be talking to a historian of ideas, the next to a philosopher or an art historian. We felt that if there was somewhere in culture we should be, it was there.
CA: At Arton A we had a video room. Now, it’s almost hard to imagine how revolutionary that was back then, in the late 80s.
MS: And before that, photography was not art.
CA: I remember, for example, when we started working with Annika von Hausswolff in the early 90s. There was still a big conflict between so-called real photographers and artists working in photography at that time. There was simply a lot happening that we who were young at the time found dramatic. There was a clear sense that we were the young generation changing things.
MA: What was the art market like when you started? Wasn’t this at the time when the bubble of the 1980s had just collapsed?
MS: Yes, it was completely dead. You can’t even imagine.
CA: But we also started in an environment and at a time when that wasn’t a problem. For one thing, there was no speculation in contemporary art back then. The art bubble that existed in the 80s was in the secondary market. For instance, people bought parts of a painting by Anders Zorn [1860–1920], and so on. It didn’t concern us at all.
On the one hand, it was very different from now, when you start with a business plan, funders and a real estate owner who provides the space. That kind of crass commercialism was unthinkable at the time. We had other jobs to earn a living, so we could show these hopeless – financially speaking – installations in the gallery. Many of these exhibitions have become very important, but sometimes much later. I’m thinking, for example, of Xavier Veilhan’s Le Studio from 1993, which we sold fourteen years later, and which was resurrected twenty-four years later in the French Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
MA: What were your day jobs?
CA: I wrote questions for [the television game show] Jeopardy!
MS: And I was at the Swedish Montessori Association’s office. That was also in the wake of punk; there was an obvious sense of DIY. If something didn’t exist, you made it yourself. You didn’t sit around and wait for someone else to pay. The most important thing, in hindsight, was that we made the decision not to work only with Swedish artists. Ciléne, you went to Paris and met Xavier Veilhan. We were also in London early on. It was a bit “Okay, this YBA we’ve been reading about seems interesting, we’ll send a fax to Matthew Slotover at Frieze and ask if he has any tips.” After a day, we got two pages back.
CA: We met Mark Wallinger, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Abigail Lane, and several others, and invited them to show at the gallery. We also started doing art fairs abroad early on. The first one was Art Chicago in 1995. It was big and important, so we applied. And were accepted. Claes Nordenhake was on the fair committee – that may have helped. He was already one of the really established gallerists.
MS: We showed one of the sculptures from the Chapman Brothers’ Five Easy Pissers [1995] and were almost thrown out for exhibiting indecent art. Nordenhake had to defend us at an emergency meeting. We didn’t get it.
CA: The fairs were more personal in those days. It was a bit like being at camp. All the gallerists stayed in the same hotel and socialised a lot. This was also pre-internet, so a time when information wasn’t nearly as accessible as it is now. An exhibition in New York, for example: if you were lucky, it would be in Artforum, and hopefully you could read about it before it went down. So the fairs were important venues for meeting colleagues and artists.
MS: Not to mention what gallery work was like back then. Photographing, developing, producing slides, sitting at an old typewriter, putting it all down in a padded envelope, sending it to the client who might receive the material a fortnight after the opening.
MA: There were several established galleries when you started, but you were early in the new generation of gallerists that started in the early 1990s. I had just started writing about art and remember well how Stockholm’s art scene was transforming from a local affair into something much more fun.
CA: It was a time of real expansion. It was also sustained by there being a lot of media attention around art. On the one hand, all four daily newspapers in Stockholm wrote criticism, which feels like science fiction now, and, on the other hand, there were all the journals. Material was important – they wrote quickly, also with depth – and Siksi and Index. For many years, Dagens Nyheter had something they called “Galleriet” (The Gallery). They published a full page about a work of art every Sunday. Criticism has really had a downfall.
MA: A lot of people feel that today, that there is so little criticism. I’ve been freelancing for daily newspapers since 1993, and I think the number of art pieces is about the same. There was a big discussion even then, that art wasn’t given enough space. What has happened is that the texts have become much shorter.
CA: And the content has become more referential and informative. A critic, I imagine, is still an educated person who, with some literary flair, sinks their teeth into a subject and does something beyond pure reporting. It’s more and more becoming just top-ten lists and “here are the exhibitions to watch out for this fall.”
MA: There have been major economic and structural changes in the media. The same year I started writing for Dagens Nyheter, 1998, the culture editor at the time, Arne Ruth, left the paper. The reason was the shake-up in which the culture editor – who had previously been one of the paper’s three managing editors – lost his title of managing editor and was given a less autonomous position. As a freelancer, I obviously don’t have the best insight, but my impression is that the editors of the culture section have been given much more responsibility, but less power.
MS: And, I dare say, that Svenska Dagbladet, for example, has cut back on their art coverage.
CA: At that time, I had a feeling that art was part of the culture sector. Now, it has become more business-like and part of the experience industry. There wasn’t the plethora of degree programmes that now exist, where you can get an MA in arts management or art market studies. Back then there weren’t even curatorial programmes. People went into the arts without this idea that you could make a career out of it or make money out of it.
MS: Now, we are perhaps the antithesis of that, but back then it was the other way around. Ciléne and I often talked about the fact that we have to be able to talk about money and art at the same time, that artists should be able to make a living. We noticed a resistance from an older generation back then, who thought it was wrong.
CA: But it wasn’t like it is now, when we equate someone being financially successful with being an important artist. I guess it’s always been like that in other fields, but now it’s clear in art as well. We live in a hyper-capitalist society where every relationship is transactional.
MS: This is also evident in institutional exhibitions today. On the one hand, with what the funding structures are like, especially abroad, but also here in Sweden, like at Moderna Museet, with donations and private funding. On the other hand, the art itself, which is becoming more experience-oriented and expected to provide clear answers.
CA: Yes, there has been a clear shift from the publicly owned to the private. I remember joking ten years ago, in an interview with Swedish television, “I feel like this idea of publicly owned museums, publicly owned art collections, is maybe just a blip in our history.” Museums don’t have the same muscle and ability to act as quickly as private collectors. Many important works from recent decades are in the hands of private collectors.
MS: One thing we often talk about is that people don’t understand, or care about, their role in this ecosystem, in the whole infrastructure. A critic can mean a lot to the artist, who feels seen and valued. A collector can also mean an enormous amount, not only for the economy, but for the development of the artist. That’s something we’ve seen diminish. Collectors today – well, there are very few, there are buyers – don’t care if they influence or help. They just want an object.
CA: Come on, there are some collectors!
MS: Absolutely. I’m generalising. But when we started the gallery, there was a lot more talk about wanting to make a difference, to matter. But maybe I’m exaggerating?
CA: No, I think you’re right. There are a lot of actors who stand for what I would call the new thing: you do an exhibition here and one there, and then you get some catering for the guests, who have a lot of money, and then you sell. That’s it.
MA: I want to go back to the beginning. What has it been like for the gallery over the years?
CA: The business has expanded. We started on Kammakargatan, then we had a space at Stureparken for a couple of years. Then we were on Markvardsgatan for ten years in the old premises of the gallerist Sten Eriksson. I felt that was the first big step. There we had space for staff and storage. We also did several major installations and experimental exhibitions there, such as a sound installation by Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen in 2003.
MS: Financially, the fairs and especially Art Basel have been the big thing for us. But it’s hard to understand, I think, how enormously labour and resource intensive a fair like Basel is for a gallery of our size.
MA: Everything seems to have gotten bigger. Why is there more money now?
MS: We talk about the one-percenters. There has simply emerged a very moneyed class. Now they even talk about the one per cent of the one per cent. Auction houses emerging into the contemporary art arena has also been a driving force in making it more of an industry. This was evident when Sotheby’s and Christie’s and others brought contemporary art in and began to make exhibitions with works that they would then sell at auction. So one driving factor is clearly the entry of the financial market into the contemporary art arena.
CA: If the auction houses are driving up prices for contemporary art, then, of course, that creates speculation. People can buy a work for EUR 15,000 one day and sell it two years later for EUR 380,000.
MS: It attracts a lot of money and people with that kind of interest. This has leaked out to the galleries, which can also work that way with the help of the secondary market.
MA: So, really, you as gallerists should be able to benefit, and the artists too?
CA: Yes and no, because the costs have also increased dramatically. Let’s say we’re going to be in Basel, where a minimum participation costs between SEK 800,000 and 1 million [EUR 70,000 and 90,000]. Then everything needs to be at a certain price point, otherwise you can sell everything and still lose money. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how this has happened, but one thing has clearly led to another. Income inequality has also increased exponentially in recent decades. Thirty years ago, you couldn’t buy a down jacket in Stockholm for SEK 30,000 [EUR 2,700]; now, it’s no big deal. Most importantly, the prices are not linked to the true value of art.
MA: You often have long-term collaborations with the artists you work with. But you also bring in new artists all the time.
MS: We are in many ways a traditional gallery. Long-term representation is important to us. That doesn’t just mean working together for a long time. It means first and foremost believing in an artist’s work even when it’s not selling. There isn’t an artist who doesn’t experience slumps, commercially or with career and exhibitions. Those from a younger generation who choose to work with us are attracted by that perspective. But it’s not specific to our generation, and there are many other ways for an artist to work.
CA: We want to be able to offer continuity and support and work a lot with all the logistics of transport, loans, and storage, for example.
MA: Today you also have a gallery in Paris. How did that come about?
CA: We opened there in the spring of 2019. Originally, we wanted a more limited space, like a project space. Now, a lot of things did limit us from the beginning. First, the big strikes in Paris in the fall of 2019, then Covid, when the gallery was closed for twelve weeks, three times. So, the start was not as we had planned. But it was clearly the right decision, and now we have moved to bigger premises.
MA: What’s it like, being a gallerist in Paris?
CA: It’s good. The main difference between Stockholm and Paris is that culture has such a clear status in France. And the range is enormous, from the small to huge contemporary institutions and big galleries. David Zwirner, White Cube, everybody is there. The competition is on a completely different level, but also the interest. Even people who don’t work in the arts think culture is important. It’s reflected in so many ways there. Here, it’s like you’re hardly considered to have a real job if you work in the art world.
MA: It has become common for galleries to have branches in several cities: Stockholm, Mexico City, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Berlin, NYC. Obviously, two gallery spaces make for a bigger market, but I suspect there are more reasons?
MS: It definitely reflects that the market is bigger and more global. In our case, it also reflects that Stockholm is small. There is not enough of a customer base here.
CA: That’s how we got into the Paris track: we thought about the international fairs, which are resource-intensive and a big stress factor. Instead of spending a million on a fair, why not rent a space, which allows for a deeper relationship with artists and audiences. So much more can be conveyed.
MS: We usually say we pay a lot of money to bring a work to Sweden to show it here, then we pay a lot of money to ship it out of Sweden to sell it. Then it was a bit more complicated than just going showing up and opening a gallery.
CA: But at the same time, it was an easy choice. It’s too bad, but people abroad don’t care very much about Sweden. One person we know said at one point: “Frankly, if you’re the best gallery in Sweden, who the fuck cares!” I was speechless. Obviously, he said it to provoke. But it wasn’t completely unwarranted. Stockholm is far away. Sweden is a small country with ten million inhabitants. It’s also a very materialistic society. Culture is certainly not high on the agenda. Nobody comes here more than once in their lifetime, in July when we’re closed… But everyone comes to Paris. It’s the most visited city in the world and, clearly, the global art world right now.
MA: But what happened to the “Nordic miracle,” which was all the rage for a few years in the happy 1990s, and which gave Swedish artists a huge boost internationally?
MS: Well, there was a brief moment. Probably because Hans-Ulrich Obrist felt like going here. There was money, plain and simple.
CA: Here, organisations like Iaspis have worked well over the years, I think. Especially when it comes to bringing in curators from other countries to visit artists.
MA: But what do you see that excites you in art today? What is most exhilarating, worth taking seriously?
CA: It’s exciting to see a new form of engaged art. I hope we are on the cusp of a change in art similar to what it was like when we started. While there is a higher degree of commercialisation of the art scene – take Hauser & Wirth for example: it’s not a gallery, but part of a hospitality industry – parallel to that development, there’s a different direction. Like Dana-Fiona Armour, who we’ve recently started working with. She’s been an artist-in-residence at a lab that does research on genetic scissors. Where does the human body end and something else begin? This is an area that is becoming very porous. There are whole new avenues for the arts and it will be interesting to see how that area, for example, develops.
MS: I think it’s been great to see the canon being continuously rewritten, and women artists, BIPOC, and Indigenous artists are actually becoming part of art history. There is a fierce and visible movement right now and it’s wonderful to experience. When we started, the art scene was heavily male dominated. That’s important to remember. I would also like to add, since we’re supposed to be talking about ourselves, that we have really fought against that. And we have had tangible experience of what it’s like to enter into a structure and try to change it. We are in such a period right now, it makes it very interesting to keep on working.
