For Petrine
2024
For Petrine, 2024
framed inkjet prints 20 x 17.75 cm (7.9 x 7 inches), 29.25 x 56 cm (11.5 x 22 inches)
Edition of 1 plus 1 artist’s proof and 1 gallery proof
For Petrine
This ending plan was made in May 2024, one year and seven months after the gallery’s opening. It comes out of conversations with Julius Woeste and other gallerists past and present. The plan is written with gratitude for those insights which make this underrepresented process more evident. Ranging across seven areas of activity, the plan lists the steps that would need to take place for the gallery to close including conversations with constituents and the requirements for the French government to recognize a business entity as dissolved. Where possible, individuals and organisations are named to recognize their responsibilities in this process. These actors are a part of the public the gallery has built and shape the ideas it shares. The longevity of the gallery is contingent upon this public as well as its locale. Endings are inevitable but continuity is not. Access to this reality need not be foreclosed by the promise of a beginning.
While political and economic volatility increases concern among gallerists, reports have found that sales have returned to their pre-pandemic rate. Despite this, smaller galleries continue to close, particularly in cities where rising business costs including rent, transportation, and insurance make continuity difficult to withstand. The question of institutional duration and the scope of their closures further elucidates the labor of institutional reproduction—through shifting markets, locational pressures, and political regimes. There is talk of a generational shift. Do we remain amateurs?
In a couple months—or weeks—this plan will begin to outdate as new commitments are established. For this reason it is an offering to continue revisiting over the course of the gallery’s development.
Full text available in the Refindable Places companion publication (PDF)
Photographs by Aurélien Mole, courtesy of Petrine.