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No Man's Art Gallery

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No Man's Art Gallery is the first art gallery to organize pop-up galleries in a different country every few months.

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The gallery, whose headquarters are based in Amsterdam, aims at providing 'an international platform for young artists'. Seeing the need for a more inclusive art market in a globalized world, through its pop-up method the gallery has been able to recruit upcoming talents in the city in which they are temporarily exhibiting at, then taking them along to future locations as well as to exhibitions hosted in No Man's Art home gallery in the Netherlands. During their stay in each pop-up location, No Man's Art sets up a network of artists, art lovers, buyers, press and supporters.

Background

No Man's Art Gallery was founded in 2010. Since then, the organization set up or planned pop-up art exhibitions in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Mumbai, Paris, Copenhagen, Shanghai, and Cape Town. In May 2016, No Man's Art became the first Dutch art gallery to establish itself in Iran since the economic sanctions were lifted.

The gallery was in the Dutch news in March 2011, when the NRC Handelsblad newspaper revealed the story behind No Man's Art Gallery. In an interview with that newspaper, Emmelie Koster, founder of No Man's Art Gallery, admitted to having invented the gallery to sell her own paintings, which she made out of boredom, using the artist pseudonym 'Bob Koster'. It was only when 'real' artists asked her to feature their work in the gallery that she decided to turn her fake art gallery into a real one and organize pop up exhibitions.

In 2012, Koster received the Communication Award for her unique initiative, awarded by the Stichting Hollandse Haringpartij, a prestigious society with members coming from the Dutch royal family, politicians and businessmen, complimenting her on her ability to connect artists and their markets worldwide.

Every couple of months the gallery organizes a pop-up gallery in a different metropole, exhibiting young artists from the host country as well as the artists that were found at previous destinations. The gallery takes pride in finding special locations for their galleries. Previous locations were:

  • Rotterdam: A luxury flat for sale in Rotterdam-Kralingen.
  • Amsterdam: Westerpark in Amsterdam. The art was exhibited on trees, for one night only during the Dutch annual Midwinter barbecue.
  • Hamburg: Hasenmanufaktur at Hafentor 7, an old 1930s harbor building at Landungsbrücken, Hamburg.
  • Mumbai: New Great Eastern Mills in Byculla. On the premises of an old mill compound, the visitors had to cross the magnificent ruins of the cotton mill to get to the gallery space facing a pond with turtles.
  • Paris: 7 Rue Froissart. In the heart of Le Marais, the gallery got a hold of a wonderful 300m2 space.
  • Copenhagen: No Man's Art did three exhibitions in Copenhagen. One in the Ignatius building in the Kødbyen area, one in a chapel on the Vestre Kirkegaard cemetery and one on the control tower on Knippelsbro.
  • Tehran: There were two different pop-up venues in the city, one being in an uptown gallery space and the other being in an abandoned house which once belonged to a soldier in the army of the shah.

    • Projects

    No Man's Art Slum Photography Contest Leading up to their exhibition in Mumbai in July 2011, No Man's Art Gallery organized a photography contest for teenagers in the slums of Dharavi, Mumbai's biggest slum. The winner of the contest was exhibited at the pop up gallery in Mumbai.

    References

    No Man's Art Gallery Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA