What determines the value of a piece of art? What makes the essential value of art? And what is the difference? Curated by Claudia Mahler, this Salon style evening offered perspectives from various experts in the field of visual art. Christine Wächter-Campbell (owner Winston Wächter Fine Arts, New York and Seattle), Cornelia Thomsen (artist), Markus Dochantschi (owner studioMDA), Franklin Parrasch (owner Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York/parrasch heijnen, Los Angeles), and Maya Varadaraj (artist) discussed views, price tags and how art is a business. We then extended the conversation to the audience and continued the discussion in smaller break out groups.
Event Photos by Sarah Blesener
Speakers Biographies
Claudia Mahler is a creative activist, with more than a decade of experience curating meaningful conversations for women in business, art and education in Europe and the United States.
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Markus Dochantschi founded studioMDA in New York City in 2002 with the mission of challenging the boundaries of design. Markus was trained in Germany, where he graduated in 1995 with a Masters of Architecture from the Hochschule Darmstadt. Dochantschi has also served as the director of the Global Cities Architecture Program (GCAP) at GSAPP, and was Head Project Manager on the Rosenthal Contemporary Arts Center in Cinncinati. He has been a guest critic at the Architectural Association, the Cooper Union, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, ETH Zurich, and the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna.
Christine Wächter-Campbell was raised in Switzerland. She received her graduate degree in art history at the University of Zurich. In 1985, Ms. Wächter-Campbell worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice and assisted the artist Christo on his “wrapped Pont Neuf" project in Paris, where she headed the public relations office. In 1986, she started working at Blum Helman Gallery in New York where she handled publicity and artist relations as well as publishing numerous exhibition catalogues at the gallery. In 1989, Ms. Wächter-Campbell became the director of spaces in New York. In 1996, with partner Stacey Winston, Ms. Wächter-Campbell formed Winston Wächter Fine Art, opening a gallery in New York dedicated to contemporary art. In 1999, they opened a gallery in Seattle, Washington. In 2008, the New York gallery moved to a ground floor space in Chelsea at 530 West 25th Street. Ms. Wächter-Campbell currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Bay Street Theatre. She has served as a juror on a Juilliard art committee. She is also a member of the art committee for The Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation in New York, and involved with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Planned Parenthood. Ms. Wächter-Campbell also serves on the board of directors of the End Fund US.
Cornelia Thomsen was born 1970 in Rudolstadt in former East Germany. Recognized for her artistic skills from an early age, she was selected to be a student at the prestigious school of the Meissen Porcelain Factory. When the wall between East and West was razed in 1989, twenty-year-old Thomsen weathered the time of ideological and economic collapse through personal reinvention. Thomsen enrolled and received BA and MFA degrees in the University of Art and Design in Offenbach, Germany, where her thesis marked the beginning of her investigation of abstract Stripes and led to her Role Models series, a realistic and robust examination of the East German political leaders. An artist by profession, she works with the media oil, watercolor, and ink and is primarily known for her abstract Stripes series. She recognizes that being born into and living within the confines of East German socialism for her first twenty years has had a huge influence on everything she does. “How I think, what I want, what I need - you can relate it to everything I do,” she says.
Thomsen has had solo and group exhibitions in Tokyo, New York, and Duesseldorf, Germany and is an active public speaker focusing on the recent history of Germany and the role of women in society. Her work is in numerous public collections, including that of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); The Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Ackland Museum, North Carolina; Minneapolis Institute of Art; and Friedrich Fröbel Museum, Bad Blankenburg, Germany. The artist lives and works in Manhattan since 2006.
Maya Varadaraj is an interdisciplinary artist. She received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design before completing a Master’s Degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Varadaraj’s work has been exhibited internationally at Vitra Design Museum, Aicon Contemporary, India Art Fair, Sapar Contemporary, Museo Del Disseny Barcelona, Nature Morte, Salone De Mobile, Mana Contemporary, and Medium Tings, among others. She has been featured in publications such as Artnet, Juxtapoz, Platform Magazine, and We Make Money Not Art. She is also included in Phaidon’s Vitamin C+ : Collage in Contemporary Art.
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Franklin Parrasch founded Franklin Parrasch Gallery, now located at 19 East 66th Street in New York City, in 1986. In 2016, in partnership with Christopher Heijnen, Franklin opened parrasch heijnen, Los Angeles, a contemporary art gallery located in downtown LA. The galleries’ programs are guided by a conscious reflection upon the process of creativity as related to human evolution, and the lens through which they contextualize the work of the artists they show is based on historical precedents as well as the intergenerational exchange of energy and ideas. Franklin Parrasch Gallery and parrasch heijnen participate in marquee art fairs domestically and internationally, including Art Basel Miami Beach, Frieze Los Angeles, Frieze Masters (London), Frieze New York, Independent Art Fair, and The Art Show, among others. Franklin Parrasch Gallery and parrasch heijnen are members of The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA), and Franklin sits on The Art Show Committee. In 2022, in partnership with Katharine Overgaard and Derek Eller, Franklin opened Analog Diary, a contemporary art gallery located in Beacon, NY.
VENUE ACCESSIBILITY
Unfortunately, 1014 Fifth Avenue is in the process of being refurbished, and is not fully accessible in its current state. We apologize to our guests and kindly ask you to contact j.isaacs@1014.nyc if you need further information or assistance. We will do our best to enable everyone to join us.