Salle Principale — la galerie — À propos — Slash Paris

The Salle Principale gallery, which opened in September 2014, aims to bring together people from different generations and disciplines working on the margins of art, with a view to establishing forms of dialogue that can provide bold and insightful representations of our contemporary environment. The gallery has chosen to work with a small number of artists so that it can patiently provide optimum support to their creative careers. Although from a variety of different backgrounds, the French and international artists we represent have in common a preoccupation with contemporary political, social and environmental issues. Unfettered by the constraints of particular disciplines, the artists find in Salle Principale an organisation devoted to showcasing works that relate to society in highly relevant ways. The converging viewpoints of artists working in many different fields (art, design, architecture, choreography, sound, performance, etc.) challenge preconceptions and prefigure new attitudes to the way art galleries operate.

Five exhibitions are scheduled annually, supported by meetings, discussions and performances in the gallery and an external programme for certain projects. This means that each event is not merely an exhibition; it is an opportunity to construct a wide-reaching project in which curatorial and scenographic elements play a key role. The gallery is already working with critics and curators, and intends to continue this approach for future exhibitions. Salle Principale takes part in art fairs (starting with I Never Read in Basel in 2015) and initiates dialogue with art spaces and bookshops. This year the gallery began a complete inventory of Patrick Bouchain’s archives.

The gallery’s chosen home is 28, rue de Thionville in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, an area whose social, cultural and urban diversity lends itself to the emergence of constructive and innovative dialogue. It is housed in a building designed by architects Lacaton & Vassal, famous in particular for having renovated the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The beautiful rectangular gallery space is open to the exterior via a glass façade, which innovatively plays with its own transparency and deliberately theatricalises the exhibitions inside.

The interior layout is the work of architect and scenographer Patrick Bouchain. Instead of the usual partitions, he has created a flexible system using stage scenery panels, offering artists the freedom to completely remodel the space for each exhibition. This also redefines the way the gallery’s private spaces relate to the display areas, creating a « backstage » effect for the bookshelves, the office, and the storage areas.

Salle Principale is eager to support the artists it represents in the long term and invest in committed approaches that echo its overall ethos. The diversity of the worldviews it reflects means that specialisation is impossible.

The older generation, vibrantly represented by Patrick Bouchain and Lois Weinberger (Austria), rubs shoulders with an intermediate generation embodied by the duo Anne Vigier and Franck Apertet (les gens d’Uterpan) and Dominique Mathieu. Stéphane Barbier-Bouvet (Belgium) and Matthieu Saladin, who are both under 40, complete this initial list of artists.

The gallery is run by Maryline Brustolin. At 42 years old, having devoted twelve years of her life to design and architecture, she decided to return to her initial training and her earliest job as a gallerist, nourished by a multi-disciplinary approach that now drives the Salle Principale project.