On the occasion of Balice Hertling’s current group show Exposition N° 120 (maybe), Zoe Stillpass sat down with Daniele Balice and Alexander Hertling to talk to them about the past and future of the gallery.

Zoe Stillpass: I’d like to start from the beginning and discuss how you started your gallery. I became friends with you in 2008 when the gallery was about a year old. I had just moved to Paris from the U.S., and meeting you opened up a whole new world for me as well as for many others, I think. At the time, you were some of the youngest gallerists in Paris. You were also some of the first to have a space in Belleville. I remember how exciting it was that you were creating this interesting young international community within the Parisian art scene. Could you tell me about your backgrounds and what motivated you to start a gallery in Paris at the time?

Daniele Balice: I’ve worked in the art world since the mid-nineties. I started off as an art critic for different magazines, and then I moved to New York where I continued writing and worked at various galleries. I decided to move to Paris because Alex was living here, and I missed Europe, especially the rich culture of Paris where I had studied art many years before. I worked at a gallery in Paris for a year and then we met Castillo/Corrales- this group of artists, writers, and curators that were doing these extremely exciting projects. Castillo/Corrales reminded me of some of the experimental New York spaces at the time; it felt very avant-garde.

Alexander Hertling: I moved to Paris from Berlin in 1998. In the 1990s, Berlin had such stimulating energy. Based on my experiences in Berlin, the idea of managing a gallery, developing a dialog with artists, and creating a space for people to gather was really exciting to me. When Castillo/Corrales asked us to share their space in Belleville, it seemed like such a great idea; we did not hesitate. Each month for two years, we alternated between a Castillo/Corrales show and a Balice Hertling show. It was a tiny space, but it housed so many ideas and events; it also had a studio apartment attached where Castillo/Corrales started an artist’s residency. I must say, it was an exciting time!

ZS: You’ve taken an experimental approach from the beginning. Could you discuss the early years and some of the risks you’ve taken?

DB: As Alex said, our first space was very small- only twenty-five square meters- but so much happened there. In addition to exhibitions, we hosted performances, book launches, and lectures. Castillo/Corrales started the publishing house Paraguay Press there, and they also had a small bookstore in the back. It wasn’t a typical gallery set up. This model wasn’t very market friendly, and that’s the main reason why it was risky. We didn’t come from families of dealers, we weren’t French, and we didn’t have major investors. We began in a disorganized and chaotic way (laughs), but it felt like the right place and time for this kind of experimentation. Our artists started getting positive responses from the international art world almost immediately. We had no idea that things would go so fast, and we were unprepared. Also, when you’re a risk taker you lose a lot of sales. We’ve had many unsellable shows, but it’s always worth it to support the artist’s vision.

AH: The gallery started quite organically. But I think, even though the program changed and developed throughout the years, we immediately found our own identity. In the beginning, we traveled a lot and met curators, writers, and such talented, unique artists and wonderful collectors. I am still so grateful for their continuous support. We also got accepted quickly at art fairs, and several artists we presented for the first time at the gallery were invited to show in important biennials or in seminal museum exhibitions. It was such a stimulating beginning.

ZS: Another way you’ve taken chances is by giving shows to relatively unknown artists at the beginning of their careers. You also represent older, historically important artists that have been overlooked.

AH: I think an essential and exciting part of our role as gallerists is to support younger artists in developing their careers. But it’s also exciting to work with artists that inspire younger contemporary artists, so it seems natural to have this cross-generational dialogue within the gallery.

DB: We are never strategic about choosing an artist to show. It’s not about their age or their career status, it’s only about the quality of the work. Also, we have maintained a relatively small operation. If you have a lot of employees and high rent, you are forced to be very commercial and play it safe in your programming. We made the choice of not starting out too big, and that is another reason that we’ve been able to take more risks over the years.

ZS: You were ahead of your time in promoting non-Western artists and creating a dialogue with art scenes and markets outside of Europe. Could you discuss this approach to your programming?

DB: When I was studying art at Université Paris 8, I took a class taught by Evelyne Jouanno on post-colonialism in contemporary art, and it really influenced me. I put those ideas on the back burner for a while, but they were always there. Through the gallery, we’ve got the chance to meet people from different parts of the world. We started traveling more to the Middle East and Asia and realized that there are whole art scenes that have been overlooked internationally for geographical, social, or political reasons. So, it became extremely important for us to connect with non-Western artists, curators, and collectors. Right now, we are particularly interested in the Iranian art scene. We represent three Iranian artists who have been completely isolated in their practices, so we hope to allow a place for them to express themselves. These artists’ work reflects a bigger picture since Iran is the site of one of the major geopolitical issues that concern everyone in the world.

AH: I think the most interesting part of doing projects in countries outside of Europe and the U.S. is learning about a region and connecting to it.

ZS: You’ve opened spaces temporarily in several different countries over the years. Could you discuss those projects?

DB: Yes, first we opened up a project space in New York because the city was so much a part of our identity at the beginning, and we wanted to be closer to our friends there. Many of our first artists were based in New York, I had lived there, and Alex’s sister, Pati, lived there. So, we opened up a very small space in the Film Center building in Hell’s Kitchen. We fell in love with the architecture of the building, and we liked the location because it was in this touristy neighborhood by Times Square and Penn Station – the American dream (laughs). It was certainly nowhere near the gallery districts! After a few years, we decided to close the New York space because it got to a point where one of us would have to move there, and we both wanted to stay in Paris and focus on our artists here.
We also began to travel more eastward and discovered these new scenes that we just discussed. We felt particularly inspired by Beirut and did three projects there, a series of group shows including gallery artists and artists that we met there. It was such a magical experience, especially because we were already working with Simone Fattal, and immersing ourselves in the city helped us to understand her work better.
After that, we did several projects in Shanghai and Beijing. We made our first connections with the Chinese art market through fairs, and since then, we have developed close relationships with Chinese artists, gallerists, and institutions. Whenever we go there or anywhere, we spend a lot of time doing studio visits with artists and not just selling to clients, that’s why we now represent three Chinese artists.
Last year, we organized an exhibit in Lecce. We asked a lot of galleries that we admire to present works. It wasn’t really a group show and it certainly wasn’t an art fair. As you know, lots of artists and writers came, and it was such a nice way for everyone to reconnect after the pandemic.
Most recently we collaborated on a project with The Intermission, an exhibition space in Piraeus, Greece. The scene in Greece is super exciting right now.

ZS: Let’s come back to Paris. As I mentioned, when you first started Balice Hertling you were some of the only young, non-French gallerists in Paris. Since then, the art world here has changed drastically, and I believe that you have played an important role in that change. How have you seen the art world evolve over the past fifteen years?

DB: When I moved from New York to Paris, people kept saying “oh, you’re moving to France? There are no good artists in France!” Of course, that’s not true at all, there have always been amazing artists in France. In the beginning, we did mostly show artists from the New York scene, but over the years we started meeting locally based artists. More importantly, a lot of our artists from New York or elsewhere decided to move to Paris, which is so great. Also, in the past few years, all of these amazing galleries have opened here. There has been a generational shift, and young people are coming from other countries with new perspectives. It’s fantastic. I wish that more journalists would come to Paris and report on all of this. What is happening right now is pretty unique.

AH: I feel like Paris was my calling, and I could never imagine living elsewhere. I think it’s the most beautiful city with fantastic museums in the heart of Europe. However, in the early years, not all the artists prioritized exhibiting in Paris; they preferred a show in Berlin or London. But something has changed; now, many people are moving here from different places; it’s such an exciting time to be a part of the art world here.

ZS: Could you tell me about your fifteenth-anniversary show?

DB:  yes! The show includes the work of all the artists we represent as well as a group of friends that navigate between different disciplines. I really didn’t want to be nostalgic about this anniversary; instead of looking back, the exhibition focuses on the future and our voracious interest in new places, new cultures, and new communities that are finally entering the art world. That’s why the show includes some surprising artworks and unexpected practices. Above all, the ultimate goal is to create an environment that reflects t our personalities and those of our collaborators.

AH: I am so happy about this anniversary show because, for the first time, we have reunited all of the artists represented by the gallery in one exhibition, along with friends and artists that inspire us.

ZS: What is the future direction of the gallery?

DB: As I discussed earlier, we want to make the programming as diverse as possible and to give certain communities more visibility. It’s important for us to continue to have intellectual exchanges with artists from various backgrounds and to try to understand different perspectives. I have recently become interested in artists that are experimenting with groundbreaking practices that are not necessarily object-based. On the other hand, painting is a very recent discovery for us so we are approaching the medium with a certain freshness and want to look at it in a different way.

AH: It’s hard to predict the future; we constantly have so many new ideas to discuss and develop. But it has always been about making connections and having interesting conversations. You could think of our whole program as an ongoing dialog connected to what is happening around us.

Zoe Stillpass is a curator/researcher at the Centre Pompidou Metz. She obtained her Ph.D. in the history and theory of art from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Since 2017, she teaches “The History of Contemporary Ideas” at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL).