Eva Hober, monart’s Chief Art Officer
“monart is a genuine opportunity for artists, gallery owners, and collectors to be shared with the world.”
After 15 years of experience, I have embarked on a new challenge by joining monart to build their first art collection. From our second meeting with monart’s co-founders (Pauline and Malo), I knew I had to be a part of this project. As a gallery owner, I’m constantly surrounded by artworks and I also collect more and more art every day! monart is a genuine opportunity for artists, gallery owners, and collectors to be shared with the world. I like constantly looking for new ideas and strategies. I no longer believe in the gallery model that has remained unchanged for 120 years. Everything has evolved except the galleries. A well-thought-out project like monart will help to give the market a new lease on life and renew contemporary creation thanks to the platform’s partnerships with physical locations all over the world. You can’t truly understand a work or a video, if you don’t view it in good conditions. Another revolutionary aspect of the monart platform is the ability to acquire artworks in part through collections. This will allow young people to develop their own collections and allow more people to access the art world.
As the daughter of merchants, I was not predestined to become a gallery owner. One Sunday, at the age of 12, I discovered the FIAC at the Grand Palais among artists like César and I fell in love in front of Peter Klasen’s gigantic (100 m2) and frightening work “Shock Corridor/Dead end” exhibited by the Louis Carré gallery. It triggered something in me. I understood that art was displayed not only in museums and the Louvre and above all, that I wanted to become a gallery owner to show installations as wild as those of Peter Klasen, the man who changed my life. After a literary baccalaureate, I took art history courses at the university, but later dropped out. I realized that we learn art primarily by visiting exhibitions and that a painting can only be truly understood by seeing it in person. After that, I never stopped visiting galleries, even today she visits the many exhibitions at the Louvre. Artworks are sublime and all the people who circulate the various galleries of the museum are in ecstasy.
In 2001, after two years in the Pace Gallery in New York, I decided to devote myself to my own business: a gallery of my own in Paris. I thought to myself: it’s impossible: I could never be a well-known gallery owner in New York because I’m neither American, let alone a New Yorker, nor wealthy, and I don’t have any investors. So, with a “small” PEL (home savings plan) in my pocket, I advertised in Fine Arts schools to recruit emerging artists and soon found a place in the Marais in 2004 on Rue Saint-Claude. The success flourished. The gallery was six months old when Jennifer Flay selected me to participate in FIAC. I was actually the youngest participant in the history of the fair! The Marais had quickly become the trendy location for contemporary art. There were 17 galleries on my street in 2006 with permanent openings that sometimes brought together up to 3500 people on a Saturday.
In 2010, I decided to stop the fairs because I didn’t want to die as other galleries have, suffocated by the exorbitant cost of annual fairs. Then, appointed by the French Institute to commission a work abroad, I created for 4 years a traveling exhibition “La belle peinture” — a presentation about fifty French painters in six destinations around the world. This exhibition was elected by L’Œil magazine as one of the 50 best exhibitions from 1955 to the present day.
In 2011, I moved to Rue Chapon, Paris for a larger space that allowed me to strengthen ties with institutions and more artists. But gradually, I had the impression of living in a permanent fair with excellent galleries nearby like Ropac, Perrotin, and Goodman, but at the same time an increasing number of galleries with no real identity or taste.
In 2017, to everyone’s surprise, I left Le Marais to settle in the 8th arrondissement in a 150 m2 a beautiful space in the middle of the historic art district, adjoining the Jacquemart-André Museum and less than five minutes from the Lelong, Gagosian, Louis Carré, Malingue galleries, the Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses, and the prestigious Noirmontartproduction. The gallery is located on the way to the Vuitton Foundation, next to the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée d’art Moderne de la ville de Paris and the Grand Palais. So, this move was synonymous with a change in size. Even though in my career, I have had the chance to surround myself with amazing artists, I know that great artists such as Peter Klasen would not have come to my gallery if I stayed in the Marais. Since setting up my gallery in the 8th arrondissement, I have won numerous prizes alongside my artists and won major exhibitions.
To build the first monart collection, I’m preparing to travel the world and search for permanent exhibition spaces for the monart’s collection, specifically in Paris and New York. I will visit artist’s studio spaces and meet with gallery owners, exhibition curators, and museum directors from around the world. All are our future partners. I will focus on selecting artists capable of earning institutional and international exhibitions and the potential to be chosen by public collections or foundations. Some galleries are now content with their sales: monart will encourage them to better promote their artists and help them exhibit at institutional exhibitions, museums, and art centres, but not fairs. Galleries will need to move to survive; they have to reach the art market in a more sustainable way. With monart, the artist will benefit from international visibility through exhibitions around the world and through an innovative sales platform.
I plan to establish monart over the next two years as the world’s leading platform for contemporary art.
Follow us:
