Galerie EIGEN + ART with locations in Leipzig and Berlin represents established and young artists who work in media such as film/video, photography, installation, painting and sculpture as well as conceptual art and performance. Therefore the gallery's program is dedicated to different fields of contemporary art.
Galerie EIGEN + ART emerged in the year 1983 as an unofficial gallery project in the private loft of Gerd Harry Lybke at Körnerplatz in Leipzig. Artists who were proactive out of the government doctrine presented the forbidden and therefore illegal exhibitions. The constant professionalisation of that impulsive project allowed an on-going exhibition activity and the creation of a distinctive image of the artistic programs already early.
A number of the artists that the gallery represents today are part of the program since these first exhibition projects. Advanced into a central and national venue, Galerie EIGEN + ART expanded in spaces of a former studio in the Fritz-Austel-Straße in 1985. Until the end of the 1980's Galerie EIGEN + ART also obtained international attention, especially by the traditional fair in Leipzig, which allowed the west a free entry into the GDR twice a year.
Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the course of the new political conditions in the FRG since 1989, Galerie EIGEN + ART followed the plan to take position with temporary gallery spaces directly on-site in the international art capitals.
Galerie EIGEN + ART started with these temporary gallery spaces in 1990 in Tokyo, followed by stations in Paris in 1991, Berlin in 1992, New York in 1993 and London in 1994. Since 1991 Galerie EIGEN + ART participates in the important international art fairs in New York, Basel, Berlin, London and Miami. Since the beginning the gallery presents its artists on established concepts, for example solo presentations in New York and London or a broad range of the whole program in Berlin, Miami and Basel.
Out of a temporary project back then in the just founded Kunst-Werke in Berlin, today's location of Galerie EIGEN + ART developed in 1992 in Auguststraße in Berlin-Mitte. Both locations of Galerie EIGEN + ART in Leipzig and Berlin reflect the processual structures of the gallery's history. As the factory hall on the grounds of the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, to which the gallery moved in 2005, provides room for generously arranged exhibitions, the gallery in Berlin realises more concentrated forms of presentation.
In March 2012 we opened our third gallery, EIGEN + ART Lab, in the former Jewish Girls’ School building in Berlin Mitte. The space will function as a platform to exhibit international artists who currently live outside Berlin. The objective of EIGEN + ART Lab is to offer grounds for the display of new, disparate viewpoints, to transfer such discrete bearings to the cultural center of Germany and in doing so, present them in an entirely new context. The space awards us the opportunity to work with artists, both young and old, who are not curently part of our gallery's program over an extended period of time.
Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin
Since its foundation Galerie EIGEN + ART works continually with a solid number of artists. By the permanent cooperation with the artists, the gallery is involved in the steady development of each artistic position and therefore involved in the current art events since it's beginning. The centre and the origin of the gallery's business are the represented artists and the development of their artistic work. Furthermore the program is complemented with several new artistic positions at a time after long processes. Referring to the time of Galerie EIGEN + ART's foundation, group exhibitions of young artists that are not an inherent part of the gallery's program are shown in regular terms.
The artists represented by Galerie EIGEN + ART work in different areas of fine art as well as in an already established environments and at the beginning of artistic constitutions. Galerie EIGEN + ART represents:
Akos Birkas, Birgit Brenner, Marc Desgrandchamps, Martin Eder, Tim Eitel, Nina Fischer/Maroan el Sani, Stella Hamberg, Christine Hill, Jörg Herold, Uwe Kowski, Rémy Markowitsch, Maix Mayer, Ryan Mosley, Carsten Nicolai, Olaf Nicolai, Neo Rauch, Ricarda Roggan, Yehudit Sasportas, David Schnell, Annelies Strba, Matthias Weischer.
