SPOTLIGHT EAST ASIA
The expansion of Galerie EIGEN + ART beyond Germany and Europe has been a principle since the beginning of the gallery's history. Immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gerd Harry Lybke went to international metropolises of fine art with some gallery artist friends: in 1990 he opened a temporary gallery in Tokyo, later in Paris (1991), Berlin (1992), New York (1993) and London (1994). At the same time, the gallery took part in the most important art fairs in Frankfurt, Basel, Cologne, New York, Berlin, Miami, London and Paris. Exchange with curators and artists, as well as local institutions, is always essential.
The gallery has also been consistently pursuing this idea since 2010 in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. With the opening of pop up galleries, collaborations and participation in fairs in Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo, the gallery operates in both local and global contexts.
The gallery also focuses on academic projects and exchanges with institutions, art schools and museums in East Asia. Some selected projects in recent years have included: workshops (Inter-Youth) and exchanges with professors and students from the China Academy Art in Hangzhou (2016–2021), one of the most important art dialogues between China and Germany Deutschland 8 with works by Tim Eitel, Uwe Kowski, Neo Rauch, David Schnell (2017), continuous training programs and exchange with the Central Academy of Fine Arts (since 2019), Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art with Nicola Samorì (2019), K11 Art Foundation Artist Village with Martin Gross (2019–2020), solo exhibition by Tim Eitel realized with Daegu Art Museum (2020), online artist talks with Marc Desgrandchamps and Nicola Samorì and CCA Hangzhou (2022), collaboration with the HOW Art Museum Shanghai and Kai Schiemenz, performance and participation by Carsten Nicolai at the 14th Shanghai Biennale (2023) etc.
In 2020, the gallery held its first pop-up exhibition in Taipei, followed by another stop in Seoul in 2024. We want to continue this series of pop-up shows in the future in order to bring European and Asian artists into dialogue.
With new perspectives arising from this exchange, we curated the exhibition West Lake at Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin in 2019, together with the support of CCA Hangzhou. Here, works by Jianlian Guo, Qing Li, Shijian Jing, Xuhong Yu and Yangping Jin entered into dialogue with works by Tim Eitel, Kai Schiemenz and David Schnell.
In 2023 we realized the first group exhibition Be Water with four guest artists from East Asia in the Berlin gallery.
In close exchange with the various art scenes in these countries, we look forward to continuing our collaborations and consistently expanding our program!
