On finding the role you want to play

You are the founder of Bureau, a contemporary art gallery in New York City, known for a highly authentic and conceptual program. Tell me about how you started out in the world of art, and how you’ve managed to maintain curatorial integrity despite market pressures.

I didn’t set out to run a gallery, that’s for sure. I’m originally from New York, and so after completing my Master’s in Art History in London, I came back and was looking for jobs. I happened to have had some very light experience with some Swiss artists in a show that I had worked on in London with friends. I think it was because of this that I was offered a job at the Swiss Institute, to be the assistant to the artistic director, who at the time was Marc-Olivier Wahler.

I knew a lot about modern art and had studied art history, but had focused on early 20th-century Dada and Surrealism. I got a crash course in contemporary art at the Swiss Institute. I was there for five years, slowly worked my way up, and eventually hit a glass ceiling when Marc-Olivier left. My friend, Howie Chen, who was a curator at the Whitney at Altria, was also feeling frustrated at the time. We decided to start a little project space called Dispatch, at 127 Henry Street. It had already been a location of another artist-run project and has since been the location of Chapter NY and FIERMAN and now OPEN STUDIO, David Fierman’s progressive studio project. A storied address.

Howie and I were running what we called a “curatorial Dispatch office.” It was a really tiny space where we could invite artists to experiment. We were interested in the urban location of a taxi dispatch office, the idea of things and communications coming in and going out. It was a place for not only projects, but where people could receive information about what artists were doing.

After running Dispatch for about three years, I had started working with a number of artists who I wanted to continue working with. At the time we were like, “We’re going to reinvent the model. Curators running a space is the way to go.” But it turns out that the gallery model actually runs a certain way for a reason. Representing an artist—doing multiple projects and having a kind of buy-in with them—is actually really important. So we did some soul-searching and eventually decided to split up. He went on to continue curating, writing, and teaching. I launched the gallery out of Dispatch. It became Bureau. I started representing artists. I started with a roster of about six artists, most of whom I still represent today.

I would say that as a curator, and as a young curator, I was idealistic and very anti-“the market.” Later I realized that the only way I could work with artists multiple times—artists that I loved, who I worked with either at the Swiss Institute or at Dispatch—was not through being a curator.

When selling artwork, do you have an ideal collector in mind? When you put a show up, aside from the artists in the community, who is the audience who you’re trying to reach?

I feel like I’m a pivot point between two essentially very, very different types of relationships. Me with the artist in the studio, and then me with the collector. It’s difficult. You want someone who’s attentive, kind, and considerate—which should go without saying, but sometimes bears repeating. Obviously, be interested and curious. I really prize loyalty, but I’m also realistic that most collectors are not going to buy from every show. People’s lives change.

Ideally, you want someone who is brave and who trusts you, rather than someone who only listens to what all their friends are saying. I also love a collector who is on their own trip, who has a weird collection of antiques or has just a particular vision for their own collection, and not trying to be a cookie cutter of what everybody else has.

I think a lot of collectors don’t realize how crucial they are to keeping our businesses open. They are literally the only way we stay open. I can’t charge a membership fee. I don’t charge entry. I run on the whim of the mood of the wealthy. They are crucial and sometimes I wish they took their role as seriously as I take mine.

Tell me more about the internal work it takes to maintain a good relationship with what you’re working on. What does self care for a gallery owner look like?

I meditate almost every day. I attend Buddhist meetings. There’s a whole other side of my life that’s helping me maintain equilibrium and perspective on what I’m doing. When I’m scared about money, I can say, “Well, I don’t have any bills to pay today.” Even if I’m very good at projecting and I see that the projections never look that good… But I also have no idea who’s going to call me up and say, “Hey, we need another four of these.” So it’s about gratitude and taking it day by day.

I know that what I do is vital and I don’t want the gallery to close because I love my artists and I want to continue to support them. A lot of the artists who I work for don’t make a lot of sales and have to have jobs. But I think that the emotional support of having the gallery is really important. I’m not in control of the universe, nor am I in control of the whims of collectors—which as I said, is what the gallery hinges on. I do as best as I can. I work really, really hard. But I have to let go of the outcome.

When it comes to the artists you choose to work with, what qualities do you look for in the work and in the personality?

I love artists who are obsessed with their own thing. I am always interested in an artist who would be making what they’re making whether or not they had an audience.

I also look for an emotional connection. I can’t work with difficult people. I think being an artist requires some humility. It is such a vulnerable thing to be an artist and put your work out into the world. I try to protect that, but it’s also important for artists to have realistic expectations about what that entails. I know what I’m doing, but it’s impossible to know what is going to happen if I give somebody new a show. It’s also hard when things went really well the first couple of shows, but then the interest wanes. Artists can be faced with a lot of disappointment, and so having a sense of humility and maintaining a good relationship is very important.

You said that you can usually sense when a relationship with an artist will work. Do you feel like you rely heavily on intuition?

Yes, I think it’s a really important sense to hone. Learning to tap into the feelings in your body when you’re having an interaction and how to interpret them is really important. My dad was in business and he always told me to trust my gut. It really works a lot of the time. It certainly helps with staying out of bad situations. We don’t have to communicate verbally to receive messages from one another.

Can you tell me about an exhibition or project at Bureau that meant a lot to you? Maybe it’s a moment where things worked out really well, or you felt like, “Oh yeah, this is worth it. It’s working.”

The success of a show is not how I measure what’s working, although I love making sales and having a successful show. There’ve been a couple of times where I’ve just been alone in the gallery… I remember even back on Henry Street, I went out to North Dumpling and got some dumplings and came back. I think I was standing in Justin Matherly’s show. I was just eating dumplings by myself. The gallery was closed, but I was in my own space, and I was like, “I’m really doing this. This is really cool.”

Some of my favorite projects didn’t necessarily sell very well… Here’s a good story. We did a show with Ellie Ga at 178 Norfolk. It must have been 2017. It was a two-channel video installation called “Strophe: A Turning” and it had gotten incredible viewership and press. On the day we were closing, a curator from the Whitney texted me and said, “I’m out of town. Is there any way I can see the show on Tuesday before you de-install?” And so we waited, and she came, fell in love with the show, and put Ellie in the next Whitney Biennial. It’s a really, really good feeling of knowing when to prioritize things in what way.

Museum engagement adds so much to the cultural value of a gallery. What you are within society is determined by who’s looking and who wants to engage. Is there anything else we haven’t talked about that adds value to the gallery?

I feel like we have a huge viewership of artists. When sales are really slow, I try to remember that we’re still doing something important. The fact that artists come and love what we do tells me that. Artists know how to read each other’s work better than dealers, or curators, or collectors. When I witness an artist seeing another artist’s work, and I can see it through their eyes and hear what they have to say, I always learn something valuable.

As somebody who is kind of a perfectionist and goody-two-shoes, I’ve learned how important it is to say yes to artists. Marc-Olivier taught me that if you can say yes to an artist, then you should. You can’t always say it, but if you’re working with artists that you trust, saying yes is really rewarding and really freeing. It was really a freeing lesson for me. Maybe I grew up with a lot of “no…”

Finally, I’ve learned the value that arts administration has. At the start, I didn’t know too much about the career paths that one could take. I didn’t know you could be an exhibitions manager at a museum, or an exhibitions coordinator. Those kinds of behind-the-scenes jobs that I got to do a lot of at the Swiss Institute taught me how to do what I do now. You don’t have to be a fancy curator. You don’t have to be a great writer. If you can keep shit together and organized and communicate well, it’s really, really valuable for bringing art out into the world.