How long have you run a gallery for and when and why did you establish a gallery in Sydney?
Many more years than I care to recall. I opened my first gallery in 1988 and expanded to Sydney in 2011.
What inspired the decision to open a new gallery space this year in Sydney, and how does it align with your vision for Fox Jensen McCrory?
Like everyone, Covid caused an unexpected hiatus. We had been looking for a space to purchase in Sydney for some time but had yet to find anything suitable and with no audiences we took offices next to Roslyn Oxley Gallery and continued to work under the enforced regime of Corona. Once we emerged from that period the hunt for something suitable kicked into a higher gear an eventually we found McEvoy & Brennan.
It was a complex and protracted transaction but we are thrilled to have acquired it.
Despite what many commentators will have you believe; the bricks and mortar of a gallery matters hugely. The digital framework simply doesn’t suffice. Of course, it is a wonderful tool in the same way that art fairs are part of a wider ecology and one we work across those platforms but building an ambitious space that allows the artists and the gallery to realise our analogue dreams feel fundamental. The construction of Fox Jensen/Sydney makes clear our commitment to giving our artists real space to present the fruits of their labour.
Image credit: The Fox Jensen’s home as featured in Collecting: Living with Art by Kym Elphinstone
Can you tell us about the first exhibition planned for the new space, and why you chose to open with that selection of artists?
The first exhibition is a re-staging of Plastic Soul, an exhibition held in late 2022 in Auckland. Plastic Soul explores the connections between “sound & vision” and includes major works by renown painters, Imi Knoebel, Mark Francis, Hanns Kunitzberger, Erin Lawlor, Günter Umberg, Koen Delaere and Todd Hunter. The grand scale of the new Sydney gallery allows us to present museum scaled works with the luxury of space.
Image credit: Imi Knoebel Cut-Up 16
With your support for international artists, can you tell us about your artists who have shown in international institutions?
Most all of Fox Jensen’s artists have had multiple museum exhibitions around the world, more than any gallery in Australasia. To mention just a few, Imi Knoebel’s permanent installations at DIA Beacon and his survey exhibition at The New National Gallery in Berlin, Helmut Federle’s exhibition at Kunsthaus Brengenz and recently at the Kunstmuseum Basel, Hanns Kunitzberger at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Winston Roeth at the Museum Wiesbaden, Sofie Muller at the M-Museum Leuven, Fred Sandback’s permanent installations at DIA Beacon and solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Günter Umberg’s BilderhausSchattenraum, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland & Body of Painting, Günter Umberg mit Bildern aus Kölner Sammlungen, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany. There have been recent, current and planned museum exhibitions for Shila Khatami, Erin Lawlor, Mark Francis, Jan Albers, Winston Roeth and much more beyond that.
Image credit: Andrew Jensen with Mark Francis, London Studio, 2022
How do you hope artists, collectors, and the public will engage with this new space over the coming year?
Energetically! We have so much to do and to present with work coming to Sydney from around the world. I hope that they regard it as the centre of what we do and stand for – as a place where the presentation of art is considered and respectful and that looking quietly is the only demand made of people.
