A chance encounter at Documenta with an African art specialist, one month before she opened her gallery, set Kristin Hjellegjerde on a journey of discovery that she hadn’t planned.
Kubatana, now running at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium in
Norway until September 21, is a sweeping snapshot of contemporary art
throughout the African continent with 33 artists from 18 countries.
Coincidentally, several of these artists have also been selected to represent
their countries at the prestigious Venice Biennale this year: these include
Mozambican sculptor Gonçalo Mabunda, Ibrahim Mahama, who is part of the first
Ghana Pavilion, and Joël Andrianomearisoa, who is part of the first Madagascar
Pavilion.
“African art is definitely of the moment. Artists have so
much to say. Because artists have to be quite resourceful with their use of
material, given the cost or the lack of canvas in the region, they create very
interesting mixed media found objects, recycled goods. The result can be quite
soulful and descriptive of where they are coming from and where Africa is at,”
Hjellegjerde remarks, pointing out that contemporary art in the region
challenges accepted forms of visual representation and stereotypical depictions
of African culture.
“With this exhibition, I wanted to show the incredible
positive effect art has been having on Africa lately, with successful artists
being able to support their families and communities, inspiring others too.
Even if artists in the region are incredibly different from each other with
totally different cultures, I feel there is still a real sense of
togetherness,” she says, adding “I’m hoping the exhibition will change people’s
aesthetic expectations of Africa and its reality.”
Hjellegjerde likes thought-provoking artwork that tells a
story and she has found plenty in Africa and the Middle East as the regions
deal with new political and economic realities in the 21st century.
“When I pick artists, I follow my instincts first, then I
look for strong identity and narrative in the work, and incredible good
technique and finish,” Hjellegjerde explains, quickly adding “I also need to
work with nice people.”
Asked about commonalities amongst her choices, she reflects
“I just try to stay true to myself. I go for artists whose work I fall in love
with and then somehow it ends up being a red thread that you can’t put your
finger on. I like to surprise myself because it’s so interesting to work with
different artists.”
Hjellegjerde hadn’t been destined to run an art gallery.
After studying feminist literature in her native Norway, she led a nomadic
existence, modelling for a while in Singapore, then studying acting in New York.
She moved to Los Angeles and worked as a small-part actress while writing
theatre plays, before returning to New York where she worked as a property
broker. But her heart was not in property. “I can sell well, but I need to sell
what I love,” she admits. Switching course, she enrolled in an art business
course at the New York University and when she moved with her family to London
in 2011, she decided to open a gallery.
While her first show was with three Norwegian artists, she
quickly expanded her horizons and her sophomore exhibition mixed artists from
Pakistan (Haroun Haward), Iran (Soheila Sokhanvari), Iraq Gorka Mohamed) and
Israel (Amir Chasson).
“I had reached out to Soheila after seeing her graduation
show at Goldsmiths, University of London. She’d made that incredible sculpture
(a taxidermy horse straddling a giant blue blob) which is now part of the
Saatchi collection. It’s a symbol for stagnating heroism, and I’d never seen
anything like it before. She became one of the first artists I represented and
she suggested others,” Hjellegjerde recalls.
The Iranian artist recently finished a Public Arts
commission for London’s Victoria Station to mark the centenary of the first
women in the UK winning the right to vote, and she will be holding a new solo
exhibition at Hjellegjerde’s London gallery in November.
The title for Soheila’s exhibition is Addicted to Love and
Hjellegjerde points out, “Whenever I do a show with an artist, I make sure they
have a title early on, because if you have a title, you know what you’re
reaching toward, the work becomes more coherent and aligned. Then the narrative
gets strong.”
Looking ahead, the energetic gallerist is mounting a show
with Senegalese artist Cheikhou Ba at the end of May in London, while this summer
she will be holding shows with in Berlin with the Ethiopian artist Ephrem
and Pakistani artist Muhammad Zeeshan, who is also currently curating the
Karachi Biennale. Hjellegjerde is full of new projects. She’s planning to
expand by moving to a larger and more central space near Tower Bridge next
year, and is also thinking about branching out to New York and Asia, “if the
opportunity arises.”
Her long term dream is to open a hotel with a residency and
gallery programme: “in my mind I have Portugal and I keep writing it down in my
business plan. I’ll keep saying it until it happens, just like I did with the
museum show.”
A version of this story was first published in Harper's BAZAAR Arabia ART (June edition)