A Rash of Art Gallery Closures Has Plagued Berlin. But a New Crop of Dealers Think They Have the Solution

Around the world, small and mid-sized galleries from Los Angeles to New York and London to Berlin have shut up shop. Some dealers turn off the lights quietly. Others exit with the gallery-world equivalent of a bang, with a caustic letter criticizing everything from bigger players poaching artists to the costs of attending too many art fairs.

In Berlin, the list of gallery closures includes not only younger and more financially vulnerable galleries, such as Gillmeier Rech, but also highly respected fixtures of the so-called “Second Generation” Berlin scene, such as Supportico Lopez and Arratia Beer. All three closed in summer 2018.

But that’s only one side of the story. Alongside the closures that make headlines and provide fodder for panel talks, new galleries have quietly opened, and some seasoned dealers have returned to their old Berlin stomping grounds.

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There have also been entirely new, left-field additions to the Berlin scene. Last September, 27-year-old Lucas Casso, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker in New York, launched his first gallery, Sweetwater, Berlin, in an apartment in Kreuzberg. His focus is on young New York-based artists who have not yet been widely exposed in Europe.

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