From the Issue: Thaddaeus Ropac
Portrait by Marco Riebler
Read the full interview in Musée Magazine Issue 23: Choices, available here.
LARA PAN: If I had to name several gallerists who are true art lovers with complete dedication to artists and art, Thaddaeus Ropac would be one of the first names to come to mind. May I ask you this question, do you remember what your first art acquisition was?
THADDAEUS ROPAC: Yes, of course, it was a poster edition by Joseph Beuys.
LARA: I believe that art is a necessary fragment of human existence. Can you tell me when and how art became an inseparable part of your life?
THADDAEUS: It was when I encountered Joseph Beuys’ installation Nasse Wäsche in the museum in Vienna. It was irritating but at the same time fascinating, and I knew then that art would become a part of my life.
55LARA: You did an internship with Joseph Beuys when you were very young. He truly changed the landscape of art and was an extraordinary person that I always wanted to meet during my childhood. How was it to work with him?
THADDAEUS: He was charismatic, engaging, reassuring. He not only said that everybody is an artist, he really meant it.
LARA: Musée Magazine is photography-focused, and I can’t help but notice some of the great photographers you’ve been work-ing with, such as Elger Esser and Irving Penn. They have very different concepts and approaches to photography. How does their work resonate with you? Essers’ work recalls early photography and romantic paintings, do you collect early photography as well?
THADDAEUS: Irving Penn redefined photography in the 20th century, as Robert Mapplethorpe did. Elger Esser explains some of the progress of processing photography in the early 20th century and at the same time moves it to a new level.
LARA: When you did start showing photography? What types of imagery and conceptual approaches first drew you to the medium? How has that changed or developed over time for you?
THADDAEUS: I started to show Robert Mapplethorpe who I have met in New York in the late 80s. In my gallery photography was always shown in a specific context back then, such as in large exhibitions like The Muse where we had works by Cindy Sherman. We don’t see ourselves as a photography gallery, but we show artists who use photography as part of their artistic practice. This is the case for example for Valie Export or Gilbert & George. You would not call them photographers even though their practice involves photography.
LARA: You have been showing Cory Arcangel for a long time; I love his approach to digital media and mass technology. Do you think that new media and digital art—which now often have a social and collaborative aspect to them online—manifest a new way of understanding the image?
THADDAEUS: His approach to digital media and mass technology was what interested me in Cory Arcangel but his work cannot be reduced to this single aspect. It also includes performance, music composition, print media, etc. interacting with his computer-generated projects. Cory's approach reflects today's open source culture, which is of course a major shift in the way we apprehend images and data at large.
