Sagenhaft! 40 Jahre Samuelis Baumgarte Galerie

156 The painter Ruth Baumgarte in 1975 opened the well- known Bielefeld gallery “Das Fenster” (The Window) in order to offer the possibility for the works of talented colleagues to be exhibited at a site with niveau When her son, Alexander Baumgarte, with his mother founded the Samuelis Baumgart Galerie, he developed the idealistic project into a business center for a pre- sent-day art of international renown. Since the mid- 1980s the Samuelis Baumgarte Galerie has brought great contemporary art to Bielefeld. From the heart of East-WestPhalia-Lippes and close to the pulse of the times, Samuelis Baumgarte is the contact and broker for cross-media works by prestigious artists— for worldwide private collections, museums and busi- nesses. Painting, sculpture and photography belong to the wide-ranging portfolio as well as media instal- lations that the gallerist presents to his international clients at exhibitions in Paris, Bologna or Mallorca, as well as through a representation in New York or at art fairs like Art Cologne. His recipe for success: “I take outstanding modernist classics, put them beside international present-day artists and combine them with young experimental tendencies. Not till there is a polarization between the artists and their many forms of expression and perspectives does something excit- ing come about.” With a sure sense for innovation and quality Art mediation is for Alexander Baumgarte also a pio- neer operation. With a sure feel for artistic innovation Art As Investment and for Your Soul – Art concepts out of Bielefeld Excerpt Stadtbuch Bielefeld 1214 - 2014 Andreas Beaugrand (Ed.) Bielefelder Wirtschaftschroniken Samuelis Baumgarte Galerie and quality our man in Bielefeld, along with an impres- sive list of important international artists, has been able to secure very promising new discoveries such as Aurora Canero and Germán Gómez for his gallery. Their success is based on the proprietor’s long years of experience, profound knowledge of the global de- velopments in art markets and a certain sense of je ne sais pas quoi. Not least of all because Alexander Baumgarte is able, with a modicum of luck, to think ahead of the next avant-garde: “According to my expe- rience, good art emerges when an artist has up to a certain degree found his own original signature style.” The goal then, the gallery owner explains, is to invest before the hype starts: “Art has to grab me emotion- ally. For that I trust my impulses, and our clients and artists trust me.” Thus the well-known “light magician”, Heinz Mack, the co-founder of the artists’ group ZERO, has since the 1990s bet on the expertise and friendly guidance of manager and mentor, Alexander Baum- garte. According to Mack’s increase in worth in 2012, he now ranges among the top 20 worldwide. His prag- matic color and light world, created in acryl or out of shiny metals and reflecting surfaces, is characterized by a monumental radiance. A quality that is apparent in the photographs of the Belgium artist, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, in the rotund and tranquil sculptures or figures in the paintings of the Columbian Fernando Bo- tero, the Nana sculptures of Niki de Saint Phalle and is also a feature of the expressionism of the German artists of the Informel that Baumgarte also success- fully represents.

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