{"id":48213,"date":"2025-07-08T08:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T08:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/48213\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T08:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T08:29:19","slug":"sardine-cofounder-talks-building-experimental-gallery-in-the-hamptons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/48213\/","title":{"rendered":"Sardine Cofounder Talks Building Experimental Gallery in the Hamptons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEditor\u2019s Note:<\/strong>\u00a0This story is part of\u00a0Newsmakers<\/a>, an ARTnews\u00a0series where we interview the movers and shakers who are making change in the art world.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen art director Valentina Akerman and her husband, artist Joe Bradley, opened a gallery out of a weathered Amagansett rental last summer, it wasn\u2019t with a five-year plan or an investor pitch deck in hand. It began more as a lovingly improvised experiment, fueled by impulse, instinct, and a small army of artist friends who were game to join in.<\/p>\n

\n\tAkerman named the gallery Sardine, partly for its beachy connotation, partly because she liked the idea that it could be packed up and moved anywhere\u2014\u201clike a can of sardines,\u201d as she told Vogue<\/a> earlier this year. (Last fall, the gallery did, in fact, pack up and head to Paris <\/a>for a pop-up coinciding with Art Basel Paris. It is also currently organizing a group show<\/a> <\/a>at Le Consortium Museum\u2019s summer space in Burgundy, France.)<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tNow in its second season, the self-funded summer project space has improbably grown into something of a Hamptons<\/a> success story. The Summer 2025 program features a film series, jewelry and artist residencies, dinners with chefs Mina Stone and Elijah Tarlow, and four exhibitions that pair painters with sculptors.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lineup kicked off in late May with a show featuring painter Julian Kent and ceramicist Isabel Rower. A show of self-portraits by Dutch painter Joline Kwakkenbos, accompanied by luminous sculptural furniture by Stefan White, followed in late June. Still to come: Tenki Hiramatsu\u2019s dreamlike, Zen-inflected canvases in conversation with Nate Lowman\u2019s light sculptures on July 18; and a final show on August 9 pairing Ida Ekblad\u2019s exuberant impasto paintings with ceramics by Erin and Sam Falls and minimalist furniture by Brazilian designer Pali Cornelsen.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tGalerie Sardine. Courtesy Galerie Sardine.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s an ambitious slate for what is still a pop-up in a 1700s farmhouse that Akerman\u2014trained as both an architect and a philosopher\u2014and Bradley also live in. The line between living space and exhibition, between design and fine art, is definitively blurred. As Akerman told ARTnews, the goal isn\u2019t just to show work; it\u2019s to build a space where people want to stay.<\/p>\n

\n\tARTnews caught up with Akerman to talk about building an experimental gallery in the Hamptons, what makes artists say yes, and the kind of shows that can only happen when the coffee table is part of the installation.<\/p>\n

\n\tARTnews:\u00a0When you first started Sardine, did you have trouble convincing people to get on board?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAkerman:<\/strong>\u00a0I think if I have one talent in life, it\u2019s that I\u2019m a very heart-forward person and a good communicator. I\u2019ve always kept people engaged\u2014people I know and people I\u2019ve just met. I think they trusted my interest in them. Even artists I didn\u2019t know personally, like Janice Nowinski, I reached out to cold because I\u2019d seen her work and loved it. Same with Hadi Falapishi\u2014I was so blown away by his ceramics and sculpture and painting. I just said, \u201cI don\u2019t really know what this is yet, but let me show some of these paintings.\u201d And people said yes.<\/p>\n

\n\tJoe\u2014your husband\u2014is listed as a co-founder. How did the two of you split the original vision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe didn\u2019t really expect it to become what it became. He thought we were just going to call a couple of people we liked, do a small thing. But when he saw what I had in mind, he was like, \u201cOh\u2026 okay.\u201d [laughs] And I said, \u201cDo you\u00a0know\u00a0me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of your early shows included work that blurred the line between art and design\u2014painted furniture, ceramics, things that don\u2019t necessarily fit the white-cube model. Was that always the point?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYes, completely. I don\u2019t come from an art history background\u2014I studied philosophy and architecture, and I\u2019m South American. If you\u2019re a South American coming of age in the \u201990s, all you talk about is modernism. And in South America, the line between object and art is really blurred\u2014it\u2019s about the environment, about space as a continuation of aesthetic life. Everything plays a role. I\u2019ve always been fascinated by the objects artists make for themselves, for their families. They\u2019re so unregulated, so full of the artist\u2019s spirit. That\u2019s what I wanted to show.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tGalerie Sardine. Courtesy Galerie Sardine.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat spirit came through in Sophie von Hellerman\u2019s show last year<\/a>, which I hear was painted on-site?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYes! I\u2019ve known Sophie for a long time. I\u2019d been to her home, seen the murals, the painted furniture. Years ago, I joked, \u201cIf I ever open a gallery, I want to do a show of your paintings on furniture.\u201d When the time came, she and her whole family came and lived upstairs with us for six weeks while she painted the show. Nobody knew. It was kind of a secret. I wanted to keep things professional\u2014but yeah, that cat\u2019s out of the bag now. [laughs]<\/p>\n

\n\tSo you live upstairs, the gallery\u2019s downstairs, and visiting artists sometimes stay with you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYes. It\u2019s a bit unusual, but that\u2019s the point. Sophie stayed. Hadi stayed. People come and sit and stay and talk. We make tea. It\u2019s warm, and people linger. It\u2019s not a sterile space. It\u2019s a place you want to be in.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a strategic angle to the location too, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tDefinitely. I\u2019ve had a connection to Amagansett for years\u2014it\u2019s where Joe and I went on one of our first weekends together, and we owned a house here for over a decade. So I knew who was out here. Artists, of course, but also collectors, curators, advisors. People I\u2019d met at parties, people I knew socially. I thought: if I open a gallery here, in the summer, I\u2019ll get all of them. Way more than if I opened the same space on the Lower East Side on a random Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd the house itself? How did you find it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMy friend Jane Wenner\u2014who is just one of the most inspirational women I know\u2014tipped me off. She said, \u201cThere\u2019s this house, it\u2019s very under-market, they\u2019ll only rent it to you for a couple of years.\u201d It was perfect. Not commercial, but workable. We live upstairs, we show downstairs. We rented it in May, and by late June, we were open. That became Gallery Sardine. Sardine was the bigger umbrella.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou mentioned that Sardine was meant to be temporary. Is it staying in Amagansett?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe\u2019re here this summer, but I don\u2019t know about next. From the beginning, the idea was that it would move\u2014pop up in different places, do site-specific projects. That\u2019s why it\u2019s called Sardine. You can take it with you. It\u2019s meant to be light and portable and playful.<\/p>\n

\n\tHas the commercial side been hard to manage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOf course. This isn\u2019t an inexpensive project. But I\u2019m trying to prove that there are other ways to do this. That we can be generous and collaborative and still run a business. For example, when I showed Julian Kent, I worked with his gallery, Kerry Schuss, to co-organize the show. Kerry was protective\u2014Julian\u2019s young, very talented\u2014but I said, \u201cLet\u2019s do it together.\u201d That made him feel more comfortable, and the show happened. It\u2019s about respect, and making room.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast question\u2014were there ever any other names, or was it always going to be Sardine?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI haven\u2019t told anyone this, but naming the gallery was kind of like naming our kids. We don\u2019t really try out names\u2014we just wait, and then suddenly, something comes that\u2019s undeniable. Sardine was like that. It felt perfect. We\u2019re at the beach, so there\u2019s that. But I also wanted something that felt small, unpretentious, and fun. And something you could pack up and carry with you. Joe and I drew the logo at the kitchen table one night. People love it. It came from a very intimate place.<\/p>\n