LONDON—During the Frieze fair in London this October, Art & Auction assembled nine young gallerists at the Louise T Blouin Foundation building to discuss the state of the art business today. The freewheeling roundtable was moderated by staff writer Sarah Douglas with an assist from editor in chief Anthony Barzilay Freund. Subjects included the inexorable rise of fairs, the fine art of collaboration, the power of the Internet and the lure of preselling. In a pressure-filled age of globalization, how can the latest crop of dealers make its mark?  

The Participants
After working for London’s Timothy Taylor gallery for seven years, Faye Fleming moved to Geneva, where she launched Arquebuse last summer. Since then she has been busy bringing artists like Brooklyn-based painter Dave Miko to the attention of a European audience.

Eivind Furnesvik worked for two nonprofit institutions in Oslo—the National Foundation for Art in Public Buildings, where he commissioned artworks, and the Photographers Gallery, where he served as director—before opening his own space, Standard, in Oslo two years ago. Furnesvik represents the Oslo-born artist Gardar Eide Einarsson, who is now based in New York, as well as American painter Josh Smith, among others.

Robert Goff and Cassie Rosenthal opened Goff + Rosenthal gallery in New York three years ago. Last year they started a second gallery, in Berlin. Their  roster includes video artist Oliver Pietsch and painter Isca Greenfield-Sanders. Before becoming a gallerist, Goff covered the art market for Forbes.

Two years ago, art critic Nick Hackworth began curating exhibitions in London’s Bethnal Green area. Last year he opened Paradise Row, a gallery where he shows young, emerging artists like Eloise Fornieles but has also exhibited a recent project by British art stars Jake and Dinos Chapman.

Sound and video artist Finola Jones, who holds degrees in curating and art, opened Mothers Tankstation last year in Dublin. There she shows artists such as Irish painter Ciaran Murphy and Australian-born installation maker Ian Burns, favoring curated group exhibitions that are on view longer than the standard one month.

With Mary Leigh Cherry, Philip Martin opened Cherry and Martin Gallery last year in Los Angeles.The pair represents young artists working in a wide range of mediums, from painters Kim McCarty and Whitney Bedford to sculptor Nathan Mabry and conceptual photographer and filmmaker Elad Lassry. Martin holds an mfa in painting.

In September, Jan Mot, who founded his eponymous Brussels gallery in 1996, joined with GB Agency, of Paris, and Raster, of Warsaw, to form the Fair Gallery, a project in which a curator is invited to choose works for a single booth at art fairs. The Fair Gallery made its debut at this year’s Frieze, curated by Aurélie Voltz. Three of Mot’s artists—Pierre Bismuth, Mario Garcia Torres and Deimantas Narkevicius—had work in the booth, which was meant to evoke the interior of a house.

Originally from Illinois, Aaron Moulton studied curating at the Royal College of Art, in London. He worked at Gagosian Gallery in New York and as an editor at Flash Art before opening his gallery, Feinkost, in Berlin in late September. One aspect of his developing program is to bring lesser-known midcareer Eastern European artists, like Luchezar Boyadjiev, to the attention of the market.

Fairs: The Global Marketplace
Sarah Douglas: Thank you for joining us during this busy week in London. Since Frieze and other art fairs are on everyone’s mind, I wanted to start by asking about that aspect of the trade. When you opened, did you immediately feel the pressure to begin applying to fairs?

Faye Fleming: Geneva has its own scene: There are interesting collectors and spaces and very good art schools. But very little critical attention is paid—that’s focused more on the galleries in Zurich. While my first two exhibitions were great, I realized that we were operating in a sort of critical vacuum, and I wanted to get my artists’ work out there fast. Other gallerists, like Anthony Wilkinson, were telling me, “Just enjoy this time. You don’t have to do fairs. Wait for three years.” But I felt an urgency.