Chantal Clousel: The gallery that delivers in 700 pages

What French art gallery can claim to produce a book of so many hundreds of pages and still maintain a demanding artistic guideline from the 1970s to the present day? The Chantal Crousel gallery, which can be visited at 10 rue Charlot in the 3rd arrondissement. The book entitled "Jure-moi de jouer" has just been published by Is-Land. Art Press sees it as a sort of ideal instruction manual on the art of opening and running a gallery. A small Parisian gallery in this case. But one that has built up a fine pedigree by welcoming from the outset leading artists such as Tony Cragg, Christian Boltanski, Cindy Sherman, Absalon, etc. That's what we call good positioning.

It is true that Chantal Crousel is anything but an enlightened autodidact. And her son Niklas, who is her second in command, obviously does everything to avoid being a me-too. Mum, a graduate of the Icart, rubs shoulders with Pontus Hulten, plays trainee at Alexander Iolas and flirts with Cobra. The son's university is called New York, where the "colleges" he attended were the very posh galleries of David Zwirner and Barbara Gladstone. Among others. This obviously sharpens the taste. In 2021, Niklas will be able to spot talented young wave surfers such as David Douard, Mimosa Echar, Wade Guyton and Seth Price. Good job, boy!

It's enough to give you ideas, isn't it?

Photo : David Douard - Mimosa Echar - Wade Guyton - Seth Price