GALLERY PRESENTATION: Blain|Southern Berlin

Blain|Southern does not impress with a gallery size of 1,300 square meters in the 18 m high, light-flooded rooms of the former Tagesspiegel print shop on Potsdamer Straße. But also by the remarkable CVs of the namesakes and founders of the gallery, Graham Southern and Harry Blain.

Harry Blain founded his first gallery Blains Fine Art in 1992 at the age of 25. Graham Southern made a name for himself as founding director of the London Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Department at the age of thirty-four in 1994. In 2002 Blain and Southern opened the London contemporary art gallery “Haunch of Venison”, named after its original location, the courtyard “Haunch of Vanison Yard”, which they sold to Christie’s in 2007. Blain is also the founder of “Sedition”, a digital art sales platform representing Damien Hirst, Yoko Ono and Wim Wenders, among others. According to an Evening Standard survey, Harry Blain and Graham Southern were among the most influential people in London in 2010.

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BLAIN|SOUTHERN BERLIN at the Mercator Höfe, Tiergarten, Courtesy BLAIN|SOUTHERN

2010 im Oktober starteten die beiden in London ihre eigene Galerie Blain | Southern, und schon im Mai 2011 öffneten sich auch die Türen in Berlin in Räumlichkeiten, die durch ihre Historie einen industriell geprägten Charakter haben und die mit Architekt David Adjaye entwickelt wurden. Noch während der Umbauarbeiten zeigte die Galerie „Turning the Seventh Corner“, eine außergewöhnliche Ausstellung der britischen Künstler Tim Noble und Sue Webster. Es folgten Einzelausstellungen von u.a. Jonas Burgert, Lawrence Weiner, Jannis Kounellis, Wim Wenders, Chiharu Shiota und Nasan Tur.

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BLAIN|SOUTHERN Berlin, Foto: Christian-Glaeser, 2012, Courtesy BLAIN|SOUTHERN 

Through the combination of the two and their many years of experience in the international art market, the gallery has from the outset been able to carry out a strongly international exhibition programme with many solo and group exhibitions of renowned contemporary artists and today represents over 30 artists. Due to the characteristics of the Berlin premises, many artists have now been able to realize exhibitions that are both site-specific and unique in terms of size. Chiharu Shiota 2016 showed Uncertain Journey, a space-filling installation of interwoven red threads, which met with a great response not only among the specialist public. During Gallery Weekend 2017, Galerie ZEITLAICH, an exhibition of Jonas Burgert’s largest work to date, presented a 22-meter-long and 6-meter-high painting that occupied almost the entire gallery. In 2016, Nasan Tur transformed the gallery into a printing workshop in his exhibition Funktionieren, which was based on the former use of the site.

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BLAIN|SOUTHERN Berlin, Foto: Christian-Glaeser, 2012, Courtesy BLAIN|SOUTHERN 

Another activity of the gallery is to support its artists in loans to public institutions and museums such as the Tate Gallery, the DIA Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the Palazzo Strozzi as well as in scientific publications in the context of exhibitions and other projects and in major projects such as “Bill Viola-Martyrs” in London’s St. Pauls Cathedral. For this purpose, the artist has created a two-part video installation that will remain on permanent loan in the cathedral.

Blain|Southern represents his artists at major international fairs such as Art Cologne, The Armory Show, Frieze Masters and Zona Maco.

Blain|Southern
Potsdamer Straße 77-87 (Mercator-Höfe)
10785 Berlin-Tiergarten
+49 30 6449 31510

www.blainsouthern.com

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