Swizz Art Biz Tanya König

If you’ve been a regular VIP at Art Basel in the past few years, you know her name: Michèle Sandoz. She was the Global Head of VIP Relations at Art Basel for almost a decade and is now the Managing Director of Grisebach Switzerland, a German auction house. Michèle Sandoz has an intercultural background, having been born in Zimbabwe to Swiss parents and growing up in various African countries. She studied Sinology and East Asian art at the University of Zurich after a trip to China before she entered the art market working for the auction house Koller Auktionen.

In the first episode of season 2 of Swizz Art Biz, the art world habituée tells our host Tanya König how her background influenced her career choice, what she liked about the current Venice Biennale curated by Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa—the first Latin American and openly queer curator in the history of the Biennale—about her current trip to Art Basel Hong Kong, and what she is planning with Grisebach Switzerland.



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Host/Producer: Tanya König

Intern/Co-Producer: Marcell Márthon

Studio: Tablecast by Christoph Soltmannowski

Photo credit: © Noé Cotter

From Los Angeles to Hong Kong, London to Monaco, New York’s East Side to New York’s West Side, Hauser & Wirth operates in 16 locations around the world. The gallery, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, just announced that it will open its first space in Paris in 2023.

In this latest episode of Swizz Art Biz x Löwenbräukunst, Tanya König sits down with Barbara Corti, who is a partner at Hauser & Wirth.

Corti started working at the gallery in 2005 when its only space was at Löwenbräukunst in Zurich. Shortly after, in 2006 she moved to New York, where she spent seven years working for 303 Gallery. In 2013, she went back to Hauser & Wirth to help it  open its first space in Manhattan’s Chelsea, which had become the spot to be for contemporary art galleries.

When the Covid pandemic spread throughout  the world in 2020, she decided to pack up and return to Switzerland. It was a decision that wasn’t easy but now makes perfect sense to her. She is now responsible for Hauser & Wirth’s galleries at Löwenbräukunst in Zurich and in St. Moritz. Corti tells Tanya about what she learned in the U.S., how Hauser & Wirth selects its new locations, and why everyone should drop into a gallery and just have a look around.

Make sure to subscribe to Swizz Art Biz on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts. And rating the podcast also helps it to be seen by others. You can also watch this conversation on YouTube.

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This episode was recorded at Tablecast by Christoph Soltmannowski.

AIA stands for awareness in art and We Are AIA is the name of a new nonprofit association founded by Martina Huber last year with its own space at Löwenbräukunst in Zurich.

The current show, The Mouth Is for Speaking, deals with the topic of human rights and ponders the question: What is needed to be able to speak or stand up? It includes pieces by Saudi artist Abdulnasser Gharem, which remembers Jamal Khashoggi—the journalist killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018—and Luke Willis Thompson, which was produced with the Black Lives Matter movement in mind.

Martina Huber is the first guest of the special series of Swizz Art Biz x Löwenbräukunst, where Tanya König, the founder of Swizz Art Biz, will speak with artists and insiders connected to the contemporary art center Löwenbräukunst in Zurich.

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This episode was filmed at Tablecast by Christoph Soltmannowski and can also be watched as video podcast on YouTube. 

In 2006, Lucerne-based Galerie Urs Meile became one of the first Western galleries to establish itself in China. Their first space in Beijing was created by none other than Ai Weiwei, who was also one of the first Chinese artists the gallery represented. René Meile, the son of the gallery’s founder, is co-director and mainly responsible for the operations in Beijing. 

He spent the past 15 months in China and observed how the clientele shifted during the pandemic.

In this episode of Swizz Art Biz, he tells Tanya König why he tries to understand China through its art and culture rather than just geopolitics, why not every show is shut down immediately when showing sensitive content, and why it’s not always easy to work with Ai Weiwei. His next project? An exhibition by painter Wang Xingwei in Shanghai, set to open in April, when Meile hopes to return.

You can watch this episode as video podcast on YouTube.

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This episode was recorded at Tablecast by Christoph Soltmannowski.

Nomad was founded in 2017 by Giorgio Pace and Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte with the aim to be more exclusive and flexible than other fairs. While St. Moritz has hosted it on several occasions, Nomad, true to its name, has no fixed home, and over the past five years has also been held in Monaco, Cannes, and Venice. Next Tuesday the boutique fair will get underway in St. Moritz again through March 6. 

Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte tells Swizz Art Biz host Tanya König that this year’s inaugural summer destination will be—drum roll, please—Capri. Talk about glam! But fear not Alpine enthusiasts, he says that the fair will return to the Swiss mountains next winter.

Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte also tells Tanya how the committee picks their exhibitors, why they need to communicate their choices diplomatically, and why the noted Swiss critic and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist called Nomad the future of fairs. Listen to the conversation on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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British artist Keith Tyson spoke to Tanya König in 2018 about his art , technology, and his upbringing. Hauser & Wirth is now showing his drawings and paintings at 22 Street in New York. On this occasion, Swizz Art Biz is re-sharing this honest conversation with the Turner Prize winner, which was aired on CNNMoney Switzerland in 2018. 

The interview can also be watched on YouTube.