Berlin’s Galerie Mehdi Chouakri will take a “temporary pause from exhibitions,” the gallery said in a post to its 14,000 Instagram followers.
“After almost thirty years of gallery work, with around two hundred and fifty ambitious exhibitions at various locations in Berlin, the time has come to reflect on how this work might best be continued in the future,” the post reads. “In order to consider this carefully and with due calm, the gallery will be taking a temporary pause from exhibitions.”
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“My decision is for very personal reasons,” said Chouakri in an email to ARTnews. “As you know the traditional primary market model requires more and more time and energy, and I want to dedicate more of my time to the people close to me.” The gallery may mount another exhibition as soon as this fall, he said.
Chouakri says that sales in recent years have been “solid,” though he has noted “some hesitation and slower decision-making from collectors,” adding that an exhibition of Bernd Ribbeck’s at the Berlin home of Rudolf Zwirner “was nearly sold out,” while an exhibition of gallery artist Saâdane Afif at the Hamburger Bahnhof “was very well received, and we were able to place several works, with others reserved by two museums.”
Chouakri notes that the gallery’s work will continue with the estates it represents (Hans-Peter Feldmann, Charlotte Posenenske, and Peter Roehr), as will its work with the deceased artists Martin Disler and Salvo. For its living artists, the gallery will seek “constructive collaboration with particularly valued and trusted colleagues and friends.” Those artists include Philippe Decrauzat, Sylvie Fleury, Lothar Hempel, Mathieu Mercier, and Gerwald Rockenschaub.
One collaboration has been finalized and will be announced Friday, the dealer said.
He notes that several artists have museum exhibitions underway, which he will continue to support, including John M Armleder at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva, N. Dash at the Hill Art Foundation in New York, and Fredrik Værslev at Chicago’s Neubauer Collegium and the Oldenburger Kunstverein.
The gallery has two locations in Berlin, at 61 Fasanenstrasse and 60-72 Kopenhagener Strasse. The dealer will maintain both “for the time being,” he said, mainly for private presentations.
The pause comes after a bruising year for art galleries in 2025, with dealers closing up their shops including Tim Blum (Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo), Adam Lindemann (New York), Clearing (New York and Los Angeles), and Claudia Altman-Siegel (San Francisco). Other galleries retrenched, including New York’s Tanya Bonakdar, who closed her Los Angeles outpost; New York’s Sean Kelly, which stopped mounting shows in L.A.; and Almine Rech, who temporarily closed her London gallery, while maintaining eight other locations, from New York to Shanghai.