Going the extra mile: Galleria Continua

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Galleria Continua, with spaces in the Paris region, San Gimignano, Italy, and Beijing, has recently announced plans to set up shop in Cuba. Artists including Ai Weiwei, Kader Attia, Daniel Buren, Antony Gormley, Hans Op de Beeck and Michelangelo Pistoletto places the gallery alongside the world’s biggest galleries such as Gagosian and Pace, yet Continua redefines what it is to be a commercial contemporary gallery in a multitude of ways.
Their international profile is fortified by a strong local commitment to the towns they occupy, offering the communities that surround them to participate in free workshops and visits, underlining their belief that creative culture is a powerful educative force.


HAPPENING
Anish Kapoor, Intersection (2012)
Courtesy the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins. Ph. Oak Taylor-Smith



To access the France-based gallery, the Continua bus rattles through the suburbs and into the countryside where les moulins sits in Boissy-le-Châtel on the very periphery of Île de France. This particular space occupies two disused paper mills across 15 hectares, currently displaying two imposing rusty steel sculptures by Anish Kapoor, which could look like they have been there since the construction of the industrial space; a series of works by Etel Adnan, sprawling from the interior mezzanine out into the gallery’s grounds; and the work of Kader Attia, simplistic yet striking installations which again seem to seep into the fabric of the space.
 



Against the backdrop of the industrial structures, the pieces seem to take on an eerier meaning. The smashed glass tanks of Kader Attia could feel very sinister had they not been bathed in the streaming sunlight that accompanied our visit; whilst winding passageways contrast the open warehouses, hiding halls of mirrors and twisted sculptures. Although it is easy to let one’s mind wander to the darker corners of the gallery, there are also whimsical, ludic overtones to the atmosphere on site, in fact, the space feels somewhat like a giant playground with Adnan’s giant color-block murals or the mazes that trail through the body of the mill made from tall folded cardboard.

 

Leandro Erlich, Changing Rooms (2008)
Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins
Ph. Henriette Desjonquères & Paul Fargues



The gallery’s remoteness does not hinder sales however, Continua is well trusted among collectors and institutions alike, just last week, I am told, Centre Pompidou acquired a work by Chinese artist Chen Zhen. From this steady commercial success the gallery provides a platform for emerging artists and galleries: Galleria Continua’s “Spheres” project invites other galleries from Berlin to Jeddah to exhibit in their space, benefitting from increased or fresh visibility; one such gallery currently hosted at the mills is Thomas Brambilla gallery from the small Italian town of Bergame. Thomas Brambilla has brought along relatively unknown artist Corinna Gosamaro, whose oil and spray polyester large-scale paintings are evocative of sky-scapes or an inky forest, that look as if they were made for the abandoned room they occupy, overlooking the icy river outside.

Visitors speak of their regular trips to the space, most of them taking the coach from Paris. It seems like no mean feat to orchestrate a gallery of this size and nature with what appears to be an unconventional business model, yet it has an irresistible appeal, which is surely responsible for the last 15 years of steady success at Galleria Continua.