[EXTRACT] How to grow without losing your eye | Marc Benda (Friedman Benda)

Marc Benda (0:00)

The most important thing is quality. You need to show the public that there is a quality of execution, of thought, of you know, that there is something happening that wouldn't otherwise be happening. You know, that is unique, that is outstanding.

Adrien Garcia (0:13)

Can you explain to us what is the role of a gallerist ?

Marc Benda (0:15)

A gallery is essentially a meeting point, in that you have an expertise in the art or the design that you represent, and you are the translator or an amplifier of that to an audience. What brought you to New York ?

To me, from a very young age, New York felt like the center of the universe. There are many centers, but it felt like the center of the universe I belonged to. Nobody even had time for me. I was 21 years old, nobody took me seriously. And the only dealer who took time was Barry Freeman. He sat me down, he looked through the photos, he bought a piece, and said that I should come back with more.

Adrien Garcia (0:49)

Starting a gallery was an objective at some point ?

Marc Benda (0:51)

My vision was a hunger for objects.

Adrien Garcia (0:54)

How do you put a price on something ?

Marc Benda (0:55)

The first time someone asked me that was the person who basically invented the algorithm for Google to price the ads. In design and in art you have a lot of young artists who take certain references. It's a copy and paste of ideas. And a young audience who doesn't even know that they are copy and pasting and that it's a rehash of something instead of pushing forward. Don't worry about PR and marketing and don't worry about that. At the end of the day what matters is the art that you show. Because if what you show is real and important and has a real relevance, then the public will find you.

It gets boring when you show the same stuff in the same place all the time. You want to be exposed to different sensibilities. So we opened in LA about five years ago. For a similar reason.

For a Swiss person and mostly for a European person, it's unfathomable how large the US is. And the distance is robust. So LA is on the other side of the continent, has its completely its own traditions and history of within architecture, art and design. And it's a very, very interesting and important history. So to be able to expose your artists in that vastly different context was very exciting. The same thing in Paris. We have an office in Paris and we do exhibitions there from time to time for the same reason. It's a completely different sensibility. And the other realisation is the, you know, if we don't contextualise our artists in Paris, they don't have the exposure there. And I believe that all three of these cities are epicentres. And all three of these cities provide a different context that adds to what an object represents if they have this exposure.

Adrien Garcia (2:58)

How did you manage to make it a success for each of them ?

Marc Benda (3:04)

So Paris is really an office with a representative, but it always came from pre-existing relationships. In LA, the relationships were both institutional and with private collectors, and the same thing in Paris.

But my whole beginning goes back to Paris, so I always retained a very strong relationships in Paris.

Adrien Garcia (3:33)

Growing without diluting, that's something I love to talk about. It's like a...

It's a bit curious. How do you make sure you don't dilute ? I mean, too many offices, too many places can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.

Marc Benda (3:57)

Well, I wish I could tell you I have the formula. I don't entirely. And you have to stop sometimes and say, wait a minute, am I still true to the same values that I was when I was much smaller and when every object counted ? And I remind myself every object still counts and every new artist is still an important addition to the gallery. So I try to keep that same sincerity and that same urgency for every object and for every artist as if it was at the beginning, where when you have three artists, you add a fourth and it changes your life. And I kind of try for that to still be the case, that passion is still the same and that rigor that you know, that you only make things and put them in front of people when you truly believe that they should be in front of people.