Anton Kern

Congratulations on this important milestone. I’d love to start our conversation by learning a little about your background and early relationship to art before opening your gallery.

Born in Germany, I grew up under the influence of a strong artist’s opinion—my father is an artist. After working at art fairs and an auction house, I decided to come to New York. There, I interned at MoMA and spent several years working at Barbara Gladstone. Eventually, this experience led me to open my own gallery in 1996.

Can you share how the gallery began? What sparked the idea, and are there any early standout memories?

Well, the idea was first to give a platform to many artists I had met in Germany, specifically in Cologne, such as Lothar Hempel, Kai Althoff, John Bock, Manfred Pernice, Eberhard Havekost, and Monica Bonvinci. To give these people in New York a platform, since they were unknown here and their language was a foreign one in New York City.

Was there a defined vision for the program when you started, or did it evolve naturally over time? In what specific ways has that vision shifted throughout the years?

Actually, I did have a relatively clear idea of what my interests were and who the artists I wanted to work with were for at least the first five years.