Few figures have shaped the contemporary art world as quietly yet decisively as Monika Sprüth. Since opening her gallery in Cologne in 1983, she has built one of the most influential international programs in contemporary art, championing artists including Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Rosemarie Trockel, Andreas Gursky, George Condo, Thomas Ruff, Sterling Ruby, and many others. What began as an attempt to create greater visibility for women artists developed into a gallery that has consistently introduced artists whose work expanded the language of contemporary art while maintaining an unusually long-term commitment to their careers.
The very first artist Sprüth chose to represent was Andreas Schulze. His inaugural exhibition at Galerie Monika Sprüth in 1983 marked the beginning of a collaboration that has lasted more than four decades. Throughout that time, Schulze has developed a singular body of work populated by distorted furniture, domestic interiors, cakes, household objects, and improbable architectures. His paintings occupy an unusual position within postwar German art, drawing from everyday life while resisting easy categorization through their flattened perspective, humor, and formal precision.
Their relationship also traces the transformation of Cologne from one of the most vital centers of the international art world during the 1980s into an important chapter in recent art history. As painting reemerged after the conceptual and minimalist movements of the previous decade, Cologne became a meeting point for artists, dealers, collectors, and curators from Europe and the United States.
Autre brings together artist and gallerist to reflect on the circumstances that brought them together in the early 1980s, the evolution of their partnership, the changing structure of the art market, and what it means to sustain an durational artistic dialogue. Read more.