Carl Freedman
Encyclopedia
Carl Freedman is the founder of Carl Freedman Gallery
(formerly Counter Gallery). He previously worked as a writer and a curator
, initially with Damien Hirst
, to help pioneer the Young British Artists
phenomenon.
had been friends in Leeds
before Hirst moved to London. Following Damien Hirst
's seminal 1988 show Freeze
, Freedman, with Billee Sellman, curated two influential "warehouse" shows in 1990, Modern Medicine and Gambler, in a Bermondsey former factory they designated Building One. To stage Modern Medicine they succeeded in raising £1,000 sponsorships from artworld figures including Charles Saatchi
. Freedman has spoken about the self-fulfilling prophecy these sponsors helped to create.
Saatchi arrived at Gambler in a green Bentley and, according to Freedman, was immediately impressed by (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years, consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head. (The installation was later a notable feature of the Sensation
exhibition.) At this early stage, Freedman was financing the production of Hirst's vitrines, and has commented that not many people attended these early shows, including Freeze.
In 1994, he toured the US with Tracey Emin
, driving in a Cadillac from San Francisco to New York, making stops en route where she gave readings from her autobiographical book Exploration of the Soul to finance the trip.
The couple also spent time by the sea in Whitstable
together, using the beach-hut, which she uprooted and turned into art in 1999 with the title The Last Thing I Said to You is Don't Leave Me Here, and which was destroyed (along with her "tent") in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire.
In 1995, he curated the show Minky Manky at the South London Gallery
. At the time Emin was relatively unknown. Freedman, concerned that he would be accused of nepotism, challenged Emin to make a great work. The result was Emin's famous "tent" Everyone I have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, which was first exhibited in the show. Freedman's interview with her appears in the catalogue. Other featured artists were Sarah Lucas
, Gary Hume
, Damien Hirst
, Mat Collishaw
, Gilbert & George, Critical Décor and Stephen Pippin. Freedman said one of the show's themes was:
Minky Manky also went to the Arnolfini
gallery, Bristol.
As interest in the YBA's reached a peak in 1996-7, Freedman was a regular writer for The Guardian
. In 2000, he started the business Counter Editions with Matthew Slotover
, publisher of Frieze
magazine, (Slotover has since left) to sell prints online by artists such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Emin and Rachel Whiteread. In 2003, he opened Counter Gallery in Charlotte Road, Shoreditch
, East London to sell original works. The launch was attended by Emin, Hume, Gavin Turk
, Rachel Whiteread
, Gillian Wearing
and the Chapman brothers
. The opening show had works by Simon Martin, an art lecturer and YBA contemporary. Since then the gallery has continued to grant solo shows to its artists, including Peter Peri
, Gareth McConnell, Michael Fullerton
, Armando Andrade Tudela
, Fergal Stapleton
and Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez
, holding around seven exhibitions a year. In 2007, the gallery changed its name to Carl Freedman Gallery
.
Carl Freedman Gallery
Carl Freedman Gallery is a contemporary art gallery situated in Shoreditch, East London. The gallery was founded by Carl Freedman in 2003 and is located at 44A Charlotte Road, off Old Street....
(formerly Counter Gallery). He previously worked as a writer and a curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
, initially with Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, to help pioneer the Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
phenomenon.
Life and work
Freedman and Damien HirstDamien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
had been friends in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
before Hirst moved to London. Following Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
's seminal 1988 show Freeze
Freeze (exhibition)
Freeze is the title of an art exhibition that took place in July 1988 in an empty London Port Authority building at Surrey Docks in London Docklands. Its main organiser was Damien Hirst. It was significant in the subsequent development of the Young British Artists.-Organisation:Freeze was...
, Freedman, with Billee Sellman, curated two influential "warehouse" shows in 1990, Modern Medicine and Gambler, in a Bermondsey former factory they designated Building One. To stage Modern Medicine they succeeded in raising £1,000 sponsorships from artworld figures including Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
. Freedman has spoken about the self-fulfilling prophecy these sponsors helped to create.
Saatchi arrived at Gambler in a green Bentley and, according to Freedman, was immediately impressed by (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years, consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head. (The installation was later a notable feature of the Sensation
Sensation exhibition
Sensation was an exhibition of the collection of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi, including many works by Young British Artists, which first took place 18 September – 28 December 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London and later toured to Berlin and New York...
exhibition.) At this early stage, Freedman was financing the production of Hirst's vitrines, and has commented that not many people attended these early shows, including Freeze.
In 1994, he toured the US with Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, driving in a Cadillac from San Francisco to New York, making stops en route where she gave readings from her autobiographical book Exploration of the Soul to finance the trip.
The couple also spent time by the sea in Whitstable
Whitstable
Whitstable is a seaside town in Northeast Kent, Southeast England. It is approximately north of the city of Canterbury and approximately west of the seaside town of Herne Bay. It is part of the City of Canterbury district and has a population of about 30,000.Whitstable is famous for its oysters,...
together, using the beach-hut, which she uprooted and turned into art in 1999 with the title The Last Thing I Said to You is Don't Leave Me Here, and which was destroyed (along with her "tent") in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire.
In 1995, he curated the show Minky Manky at the South London Gallery
South London Gallery
South London Gallery, founded 1891, often known by the acronym SLG, is a public-funded gallery of contemporary art in Camberwell, London - exhibiting artists included Alfredo Jaar, Ryan Gander and Chris Burden...
. At the time Emin was relatively unknown. Freedman, concerned that he would be accused of nepotism, challenged Emin to make a great work. The result was Emin's famous "tent" Everyone I have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, which was first exhibited in the show. Freedman's interview with her appears in the catalogue. Other featured artists were Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...
, Gary Hume
Gary Hume
Gary Stewart Hume is an English artist. His work is strongly identified with the YBA artists who came to prominence in the early-1990s. In 1996, Hume was nominated for the Turner Prize, but lost out to Douglas Gordon. Hume was elected a Royal Academician in 2001.-Life and work:Hume was born in...
, Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, Mat Collishaw
Mat Collishaw
Matthew "Mat" Collishaw is an artist based in London, and one of the Young British Artists.-Career:Collishaw attended Goldsmiths, University of London , alongside Damien Hirst and other YBA artists....
, Gilbert & George, Critical Décor and Stephen Pippin. Freedman said one of the show's themes was:
- the artist as a subject, and (to) explore the relationship between the art on the wall and its creator, to make the whole thing more humanistic. And in there somewhere there is the beginnings of a thesis on the relationship and similarities between madness and modernism, for example, defiance of authority, nihilism, examples of extreme relativism, strange transformations of the self, irrationality, and things like that.
Minky Manky also went to the Arnolfini
Arnolfini
The Arnolfini is an arts centre and gallery in Bristol, England. It has a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, live art, music and dance events, poetry and book readings, talks, lectures and cinema. There is also a specialist art bookshop and a café bar. Educational activities are undertaken...
gallery, Bristol.
As interest in the YBA's reached a peak in 1996-7, Freedman was a regular writer for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. In 2000, he started the business Counter Editions with Matthew Slotover
Matthew Slotover
Matthew Slotover , is an English publisher and entrepreneur. He is co-publisher of Frieze and co-director of Frieze Art Fair with his business partner Amanda Sharp.-Life and career:...
, publisher of Frieze
Frieze Art Fair
Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair that takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. The fair is staged by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, the publishers of frieze magazine...
magazine, (Slotover has since left) to sell prints online by artists such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Emin and Rachel Whiteread. In 2003, he opened Counter Gallery in Charlotte Road, Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...
, East London to sell original works. The launch was attended by Emin, Hume, Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...
, Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
, Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing OBE RA is an English conceptual artist, one of the YBAs, and winner of the annual British fine arts award, The Turner Prize, in 1997. On 11 December 2007, Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London....
and the Chapman brothers
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
. The opening show had works by Simon Martin, an art lecturer and YBA contemporary. Since then the gallery has continued to grant solo shows to its artists, including Peter Peri
Peter Peri
Peter Peri is an artist living and working in London.Peri was born in London. He studied at Chelsea College of Art, London and graduated from the MA programme in 2003. He made his debut in 2003 at Bloomberg New Contemporaries. His most recent solo show was at Almine Rech Gallery, Paris in May 2011...
, Gareth McConnell, Michael Fullerton
Michael Fullerton
Michael Fullerton is a Scottish artist living and working in London. He is primarily a portraitist and paints in a traditional style.-Life and work:...
, Armando Andrade Tudela
Armando Andrade Tudela
Armando Andrade Tudela is an artist living and working in St Etienne, France.Tudela studied at Pontifícia Universidad Católica, Lima, Perú, The Royal College of Arts, London, and at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht...
, Fergal Stapleton
Fergal Stapleton
Fergal Stapleton is a contemporary artist living and working in London.Stapleton studied at Middlesex Polytechnic and graduated from the MA Programme at Goldsmiths College, London in 1993...
and Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez
Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez
Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez is an artist living and working in London who works in serval mediums including installations, sculpture and performance. She lived in Germany, where she studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf before moving to England to study at The Royal College of Art, London...
, holding around seven exhibitions a year. In 2007, the gallery changed its name to Carl Freedman Gallery
Carl Freedman Gallery
Carl Freedman Gallery is a contemporary art gallery situated in Shoreditch, East London. The gallery was founded by Carl Freedman in 2003 and is located at 44A Charlotte Road, off Old Street....
.