Brazilian dealers Jaqueline Martins and Maria Montero are merging their galleries to create a new joint venture, Martins&Montero. Both Martins, Galeria Jaqueline Martins, and Montero, who founded Sé Galeria, will close their individual spaces in São Paulo and jointly open another in the city next month. Martins&Montero will also take over the second location of Galeria Jaqueline Martins in Brussels.
All employees of both galleries will be retained in the merger, and each artist previously represented by Jaqueline Martins or Sé will transfer to the Martins&Montero roster.
Founded in 2011, Galeria Jaqueline Martins has grown to represent 30 artists, including Lydia Okumura, known for her site-specific minimalist installations, and Rafael França, a conceptual creator of moving images. Sé Gallery, founded in 2014, eventually assembled a list of 16 names, such as João Loureiro, whose Pop Art-inspired work is in the collection of the Rio Art Museum, among others. Both galleries have participated in art fairs around the world, including Frieze New York, Arco Madrid and Liste in Basel.
The newly formed Martins&Montero will “exchange dialogue on art from the Global South with an exhibition of artists who respond to current social and political issues, art history and poetry in a variety of mediums,” according to a statement.
The two dealerships cite a mutual ambition to grow their businesses as key motivations for the merger, as well as a “shared friendship” and “respect for each other’s programs.” They also believe that commercial galleries in Brazil have “an additional obligation” to the public, “because of the serious political questions and the low public funding of the arts” – a challenge that is better met together, they added.
Their joint headquarters in São Paulo will be located in the Jardim Europa district, which serves as the center of the city’s galleries. Housed in a large 1950s house with a large garden, the couple hope it can be used as a public gathering space, something São Paulo “needs more of”, they say.
Martins and Montero will have a third partner in their new business, Yuri Olivera, who previously headed the Brussels branch of Galeria Jacqueline Martins; Olivera will continue to lead operations in that location. Martins says he was inspired to open in the Belgian capital in 2020 because of the high density of conceptual art collectors. He was also encouraged by the success of another gallery based in São Paulo, Mendes Wood DM, which opened a space in Brussels in 2018.
To inaugurate the initiative, Martins&Montero will present exhibitions of the works of the Brazilian artist Jota Mombaça in its two locations. Mombaça will present a video installation, a series of ceramics and drawings that “address the displacement of water, land and people and investigate climate transitions,” according to a statement. The drawings were produced by the artist in various regions of Brazil and exhibited in 2020 at the 22nd Sydney Biennale.
Mombaça is one of the Montero&Martins artists who will be included in the main exhibition of the 2024 Venice Biennale (April 20 to November 24), along with Manauara Clandestina and Dalton Paula. that show Foreigners everywhere, is curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Brazilian-born director of the Art Museum of São Paulo. Even before the opening of the biennial, it is clear that one of its legacies will be to focus on Brazilian artists who have received less recognition abroad, such as Mombaça, who, despite a “long and significant institutional presence” in the region, has only achieved success. commercial representation last year when he signed with Jaqueline Martins.
