Barbara Gross (gallery owner)

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Barbara Gross in front of her gallery (2020)

Barbara Gross (born 1946 ) is a German gallery owner who has been committed to the “visibility of female artists” for more than 30 years.

Career and professional work

Gross studied art at the academies in Berlin (today Berlin University of the Arts ) and Munich (Munich Academy of Fine Arts ). As she said on the occasion of a portrait in the Kulturzeit program , she was “unable to build an artist's ego” and therefore decided to convey art. After completing her studies, Gross became an art teacher, but soon gave up this activity. In the early 1980s she began to publish artist editions , for example by Nancy Spero , Maria Lassnig or Valie Export .

During this time she was initially on leave as an art teacher because, as she wrote in Courage magazine in 1983 , she wanted to keep a “back door” to her profession open because she was unsure how long her own savings would support her. She wanted to offer “cheap pictures by good artists”, “so that women in particular could afford” to buy them.

"With the aim of making female art visible", Gross opened her gallery in 1988. She was active in the women's movement and angry about the lack of representation of women in art in museums and the public. That is why she initially only presented the works of women in her gallery. At that time there were already some gallery owners in Germany in addition to Gross - such as B. Monika Sprüth or Philomene Magers  - but unusual was a program that without exception showed art by women. "Your first presentation was a group exhibition by Ida Applebroog , Ina Barfuss , Miriam Cahn , Hannah Collins, Maria Lassnig , Katharina Sieverding and Nancy Spero, " reported Monopol magazine .

Together with Annalies Klophaus and Barbara Hamann, Barbara Gross founded the Continuum association , which was supposed to counter the disadvantage of women artists in the city awarding of grants, prizes and studio space - and did so successfully.

In 2019, a year before she announced that she would close her gallery, Gross received the Art Prize of the City of Munich . The jury paid tribute to her "extraordinary [s] commitment", which had been "[...] for many years a little commercial venture". In addition to organizing exhibitions in various Munich institutions as a freelance curator , with her own gallery she endeavored to make internationally known artists, who were still little noticed in Germany, accessible to a wider audience. In addition, she promoted the "development of the international career of Munich artists such as Michaela Melián or Katharina Gaenssler ". Her work is "radical, consistent and necessary" because there is still a "blatant discrepancy in the visibility of women artists in art institutions and on the art market ".

The list of artists represented by Gross is long, and participation in numerous art fairs such as Art Cologne , abc - art berlin contemporary or the now closed Art Forum Berlin is documented. The men whose works she presented include Jürgen Partenheimer , Leon Golub and Rémy Zaugg . The “international orientation of her gallery work” was important to Gross.

At the end of March 2020, Gross announced that she would close her gallery after more than three decades. In the Munich museum area she ran a gallery for 32 years, with which she promoted women, brought them into private and public collections and finally acquired "international reputation ", as Annegret Erhard wrote in the daily newspaper Die Welt . With an exhibition under the motto Open Doors / Closing Doors - according to Erhard an "art retrospective [...] from the program of three decades " - Gross said goodbye at the end of May 2020. "It played a decisive role in promoting female artists in the male-dominated German art business ”, so the magazine Monopol .

In the email with which she informed about the closure, she wrote: "For all artists in the gallery, with whom I have worked closely, I will continue to oversee projects and act as their agent."

"This is how I want to close the doors when it's most beautiful and before age or unexpected events catch up with me and force me to give up."

- Barbara Gross : monopoly

Publications (selection)

  • I still live on my own money. Edition Barbara Gross . In: Courage . tape 5 , no. 8 , 1983, ISSN  0176-1102 , pp. 12–13 ( fes.de [accessed on May 28, 2020]).
  • Werner Meyer: Rose is a rose is a rose ... Object & image . Anna and Bernhard Johannes Blume. November 8 to December 20, 1990, Barbara-Gross-Galerie, Munich, March 3 to April 7, 1991, Städtische Galerie Göppingen. Ed .: Galerie Barbara Gross. Städtische Galerie, Göppingen 1990, ISBN 3-927791-06-7 .
  • Barbara Gross Gallery Munich (Ed.): Silvia Bächli. Works on paper. March 5 - April 30, 1992 . Exhibition catalog. 1992 (Benedict Press, Münsterschwarzach).
  • Barbara Gross, Alma Larsen: Catalog: Lidy von Lüttwitz, sculptures. Barbara-Gross-Galerie, Munich 1994, DNB  940692465 (Galerie im Rathaus, Munich, Barbara-Gross-Galerie, Munich, July 10 to August 2, 1992, Städtische Galerie Schloss Oberhausen, August 15 to October 11, 1992).
  • Difference between the sexes in the art and gallery business . In: Critical Reports . tape 26 , no. 3 , 1998, ISSN  0340-7403 , p. 51-56 .
  • Barbara Gross, Bettina Baumgärtel , Annette Tietenberg : Panel discussion. On the current handling of questions of gender difference in the art world . In: Critical Reports . tape 26 , no. 3 , 1998, ISSN  0340-7403 , p. 51, 66-69 .
  • Uta Grosenick: Ji Dachun. Bird painting without bird . Ed .: Galerie Barbara Gross. Distance, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-942405-52-2 (on the occasion of the Ji Dachun exhibition “Bird Painting without Bird” in the Barbara Gross Gallery, Munich, September 9 - October 15, 2011. German, English, partly in Chinese script, translator: Eckhard Schneider, Andrea Scrima).

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Urban Art Prize 2019 for Barbara Gross. In: Town hall look around. March 1, 2019, accessed May 26, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Annegret Erhard: With rigor, cunning and persuasiveness . In: The world . May 23, 2020 ( welt.de [accessed May 26, 2020]).
  3. ↑ a b Munich Barbara Gross Gallery closes. In: Kulturzeit. 3Sat, May 25, 2020, accessed on May 26, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Barbara Gross: I still live on my own money. Edition Barbara Gross . In: Courage . tape 5 , no. 8 , 1983, ISSN  0176-1102 , pp. 12–13 ( fes.de [accessed on May 28, 2020]).
  5. ↑ a b Kate Brown: 32 Years After Opening a Gallery to Show Female Artists, the Veteran Art Dealer Barbara Gross Reflects on How the Market Has - and Hasn't - Changed. In: artnet. March 31, 2020, accessed on May 26, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e After 32 years. Munich Gallery Barbara Gross about to close. In: monopoly. March 26, 2020, accessed May 28, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b Evelyn Vogel: Long matured decision. Barbara Gross closes her gallery in Munich after 32 years . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 26, 2020 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on May 26, 2020]).
  8. ↑ Barbara Gross Gallery. Munich. Artist. In: artnet. Retrieved May 26, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Barbara Gross Gallery. Munich. Art fairs. In: artnet. Retrieved May 26, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Gross, Barbara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gallery owner
DATE OF BIRTH 1946