This year Liste Art Fair in Basel has announ­ced that Peter Bläuer, its foun­der and direc­tor over the last 23 years, will retire and hand the fair over to a non-​profit foun­dation while seeking a replacement for his position. 

When we took part in Liste for the first time it was 2004 and we had actually little idea about the com­mer­cial aspect of run­ning a gal­lery. The art market in Warsaw was not developed and there was literally nowhere to get the experience from so both we and our artists had yet to learn the tricks of the trade from the bottom up. But our first time at Liste wasn’t lear­ning the hard way, it was the opposite. We were utterly cap­tivated by the spirit of the fair and all its qualities that still to this day make it a unique endeavor: its ease, warmth and sense of humor. We were also shoc­ked by the amount of people interested in the artists we represen­ted, and how relaxed, easygoing and frien­dly the atmosphere and thus our con­tacts with the col­lec­tors were.

Liste was always also a major artistic inspiration and simply a begin­ning of a beautiful friend­ship with so many other gal­lerists. Our artists got to be part of many exciting shows all over the world thanks to it, and we were inspired to start one of our big inter­national projects, the Villa, which is organized together with some of the great gal­leries that we met under the War­teck tent.

Looking back at our rookie times at Liste, we see and appreciate how Peter’s vision of the fair has influen­ced and shaped our gal­lery as an institution of an inter­national program, but at the same time striving sup­port and develop the local art scene and market in Poland. We thank Peter for all his great work and wish him all the best in the future.

Read more about Liste direc­torial chan­ges on Artsy.net 

 

Our first time exhibiting at Liste (2004).