Max Hetzler

If there is a single lesson to be learned from the first twenty years of Galerie Max Hetzler, the ‘before-Berlin-era’, it is the answer Max has invariably given journalists when asked about his guiding vision: ‘The programme is the artists.’ This remains relevant today: what one sees is artists from different backgrounds and generations, freely gravitating around this context and forming a kind of nebula. This is the characteristic which has come to identify Galerie Max Hetzler, alongside a quest for the best possible context for shows. In Berlin alone, this has encompassed the urban white cube (Zimmerstraße), a vaulted space beneath a train bridge (Holzmarktstraße), a factory of immense proportions (Oudenarder Straße), a former post office (Goethestraße), a residential building (Bleibtreustraße), and a repurposed printing press (Potsdamerstraße).