BERND A. LAUSBERG

An exclusive interview about his work as a gallery owner in Düsseldorf and the art history of the future.

10. September 2021

Inside Düsseldorf Gallery Bernd A. Lausberg

©Franzen, Monheim

An exclusive interview with Bernd A. Lausberg about working as a gallerist and the art history of the future.

THE WORK OF A GALLERIST

Gallery owners are the wheels in the gears of the art world that keep everything running. They develop the market for emerging artists, they support established artists throughout their careers and they influence the art scene by discovering, exhibiting, promoting and selling new works. Their work is risky because they have to predict what will be important in tomorrow's world. They need courage, stamina, financial resources and idealism when they establish new artists, help collectors build up their collection so that these works are eventually presented in the museums of the world.

Art history is made when gallery owners, art dealers, collectors, curators, critics and museums rally around an artist and his or her work because they consider it significant. Consensus is not enough, however, and then it is the gallerist's work that counts.

INTERVIEW

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

How did your personal journey with art begin?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

After graduating from high school, I studied political science and law in Bonn. I soon realised that these studies were rich in content but anaemic for me. Through a friend I came to the Institute of Art History and immediately fell in love with the atmosphere there. Art history was then the course I completed with a Master's degree. While I was still studying, I had the opportunity to work in an art auction house. That was the basis for a life with art and for art.

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

How did your job as a gallery owner evolve over the course of your career as your gallery became better known? What is one of your favourite tasks today?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

Honestly, I slipped into this role completely unprepared and had no clue what I was getting myself into.

Without experience, but highly motivated, I happened to attend trade fairs in the year the gallery was founded. First in Frankfurt and then even overseas. Toronto and Miami very quickly became important footholds and fields of activity that were fertile ground for a curatorial zeal that had been kindled in me. I love complex installative contexts and have been given ample space for this in all my gallery spaces and fair appearances.

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

What qualities and skills do you value most in an artist?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

Let's start with the skills, which must naturally open up to me and are able to trigger a great fascination. After that, the qualities of the artist begin to play an increasingly important role in the collaboration. In the end, loyalty is probably the most important criterion for a gallery owner who has set himself the task of moving through the world with a dazzling but unwieldy gallery programme.

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

How would you describe your gallery. Do you exhibit established artists and also unconventional ones?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

Since I have built up a typical programme gallery that seems to be committed to a certain, concrete aesthetic, there are once the already established artists of the first generation and their students who have grown together with the gallery as young artists and have been able to develop a distinctive profile in this combination.

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

Do you enter into strategic alliances with galleries?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

Yes, especially in the transatlantic context of my gallery, strategic collaboration seemed to be advantageous, but you gain a lot of interpersonal experience in the process, so in retrospect there have been some convincing and many less convincing alliances.

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

Do you have international clients? What percentage of your work leaves the country?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

Through my North American fair presences and the gallery dependencies in Torontio and Miami, I naturally have a lot of international attention. Since the two overseas galleries also mainly showed the Düsseldorf gallery programme, I can justifiably claim that 80% of sales went abroad. In recent years, with the sole focus on Düsseldorf, this figure has of course been reduced considerably. Nevertheless, there are still numerous international interested parties who observe and stimulate the gallery business from afar.

ONLINE GALLERIES

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

Do you think that in the course of Corona galleries have lost their meaning through online viewing rooms? (I personally find it soulless).

Bernd A. Lausberg:

The past few months in particular have shown us quite impressively that there is no alternative to personal encounters with art and its staging. Online portals can satisfy targeted desires, but they do not offer a space for experiencing art.

THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

What is the status of German critics, curators and agents in the international market? What position does German art have?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

To be fair, I have to say with reverence that the German origin of gallery and artists was a door opener and motor for me. In Toronto in particular, there was an incredible amount of art at the beginning of the new millennium, but nothing really significant! Jeff Wall was one of the few Canadian artists who were internationally known. And yet he was still mostly considered a US American here.

THE ART HISTORY OF THE FUTURE

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

How do you see the art history of the future. Isn't it the case that future art history will be determined by commercial success?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

That is an exciting topic, but also a broad field! Of course, success is an important factor in the systems that condition us. But one must fundamentally distinguish between commercial success, which can sometimes be quite brief, and artistic success, even if the view of this difference often seems to be obscured. It is precisely art history that has to prove in the future that it is about art and not about commerce. I don't want to be misunderstood: Of course artists have to survive, galleries have to remain solvent and be commercially successful on a manageable level. But that has nothing to do with the hype and the bubbles that often turn art into the bogeyman of speculators and profiteers.

Personally, I believe in the persuasive power of the beautiful, the true and the good, which in my gallery programme simply shows a very specific, personally coloured facet that is important to me and decisive for me. I can only do it this way and art history will fix it or not.

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

If you could change one thing in today's art world or specifically in the Cologne art scene or in the German art scene, what would it be?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that the art world, the art market, is accompanied by erosion, which softens the traditional structures of the art market and ultimately rigerously calls them into question... All too often one thinks of one's own advantage and not of the circumstances that made success possible in the first place. A more conscious perception, gratitude, humility and loyalty should not be completely lost!

Amour Fou and Art Magazine:

The past year has been very hard for all contributors to the art world. How do you feel now?

Bernd A. Lausberg:

Well, it has indeed been a tough time for someone who has started to make art publicly. Nevertheless, in the face of this crisis, it is like real life: it goes on and it is human nature to overcome dark shadows and hope for the warming sun.

Amour Fou and Art Magazine: Thank you very much.

Inside Düsseldorf Gallery Bernd A. Lausberg

©Bernd A. Lausberg

The Bernd A. Lausberg Gallery is located in a beautiful courtyard of his estate in Düsseldorf and not only hosts outstanding artists but also becomes a social highlight with concerts and readings. Bernd A. Lausberg exhibits internationally in Miami, Chicago and Toronto.

The current exhibition is called ANTHROPOZÄN and shows paintings by STEFANIE KEPPLER.

It runs from 03. September to 17. October 2021.

www.galerie-lausberg.com