Experiments, dialogue, and ruptures

Young collectors are particularly interesting for any contemporary art fair. In order to target them specifically, some fairs have even set up their own segment. There, galleries that are not yet so established can present their mostly younger positions at reduced rates. At ART COLOGNE, this section is called “Neumarkt” and enjoys increasing popularity every year, which is also reflected in the growing list of participants.

The galerie intershop, for example, comes from Leipzig. In February 2021, the project space was transformed into a UG (Unternehmensgesellschaft), a special form of GmbH that gives founders easy access to a limited liability legal form. Two years later, the UG was divided among a total of 10 shareholders – all of them artists from the gallery. Since 2024, artist and business administration graduate Il-Jin Atem Choi has taken over the management. “We are a gallery with a high proportion of female artists. 14 female artists and 6 male artists,” he says. “This ratio should be maintained. Because female artists are still underrepresented, especially in the art market, and there is pressure from right-wing extremist parties to return to patriarchy throughout society.”

Many of the artists represented by the gallery are based in eastern Germany, such as Roswitha Maul, Daniel Krüger, and Gudrun Petersdorff. “They often work in a more experimental and cross-media way than, for example, the painterly-figurative positions of the ‘New Leipzig School,’” says Choi, “but that doesn't mean that good figurative painting doesn't come into its own at galerie intershop.” "

The gallery zaza', founded by Alessandro Bava and Fabrizio Ballabio, is based in Naples and Milan. After graduating from the Architectural Association (AA) in London, the architects founded their Milan studio BB under the pseudonym åyr 2022 and worked on a variety of design projects, particularly for art institutions such as the Museion in Bolzano, the Italian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023, and the Quadriennale in Rome.

Ballabio and Bava have Neapolitan roots, which influence their work. Their office is also the branch of the zaza' gallery, which they run on the side. Their artists explore the ideas of representation, identity, and periphery, which BB researches in architecture. Previous exhibitions at the gallery have featured Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, SAGG Napoli, Jim C. Nedd, and Alessandro Di Pietro. Most recently, the duo worked on Bava's dream project, an installation that reinterprets the aesthetics of fitness culture. It was on display at Milan Design Week 2024.

The Cherry Hill Gallery, founded by Lea Lahr and Victor Beger, has been in Cologne since November 2023. “At the beginning, we were particularly motivated to work with artists of our generation whose work interested us, but who had had few or no exhibitions in Germany or the Rhineland,” they say. “That's why we see the gallery as a platform for exchange and dialogue. This year, for example, we organized an exhibition curated by Tokyo's Gallery 4649.”

The duo focuses on artistic practices that provoke irritation, reveal gaps, or negotiate questions of temporality. At ART COLOGNE, they are showing Anna Rubin, an artist based in New York who works primarily with video. She deals with media as forms of thinking, perceiving, and experiencing time. She is joined by Julian Krause, a German sculptor whose works arise from his exploration of various material processes. Eyrie Alzate, the third member of the trio, works at the interface between analog and digital imaging, using a conventional printer as her most important tool. “Alzate's working process allows gaps, breaks, and changing relationships to emerge, creating works that paradoxically appear both timeless and deeply present,” explain the gallery owners. Her works were most recently shown at Schiefe Zähne, Berlin (2025), Shore, Vienna (2025), and Diana, Milan (2025).