Gallery Diez | A leap of faith

In conversation with Diego Diez about his gallery, ambitions and presentation at Art Rotterdam

Diez Gallery participates in Art Rotterdam for the second time. The young Amsterdam gallery is making a name for itself with its program and daring presentations at major international fairs. This year, Diez Gallery is part of the Main Section. We spoke with founder Diego Diez about his gallery, his ambitions, and his plans for the upcoming edition of Art Rotterdam.

“We will soon celebrate our third anniversary,” says Diego Diez in the back room of his gallery in Amsterdam West. “I saw opportunities for my gallery because there wasn’t a gallery in Amsterdam with the same ambition or projects that I want to show in my gallery.” In a relatively short time, he managed to build a reputation—not so much in the Netherlands, as Diez mainly programs with artists who are more renowned abroad.

The Spanish Rietveld alumnus has participated in prestigious fairs such as Frieze, Liste, and ARCO. There, he stood out with bold presentations. For example, with Sands Murray-Wassink, he showed a selection of 365 drawings in his booth and captured attention; at Liste with Ian Waelder’s presentation, incorporating an architectural intervention to transform it into a small museum exhibit.

Money or financial gain is not the main focus for Diez, who articulates his plans with great clarity. “The art fairs I do and the steps I take need to serve a purpose. Doing an art fair just for the sake of it is simply a waste of time and energy.” Diez’s goal is to increase the visibility of his gallery and place works in major private or public  collections.

A Leap of Faith
Art Rotterdam is scheduled for late March. While Diez had a booth in the New Art Section last year, this time he will participate in the Main Section. Because the previous edition was commercially successful—Diez sold all the works he brought—he is excited to return to Rotterdam and continue to show the different aspects of his program from the main section.

“I am not yet well-known among a larger group of collectors, curators, and corporate collections in The Netherlands. My goal is to show my commitment to this scene, city, and country and to demonstrate that I am truly convinced that Amsterdam is a good place for my gallery. For that, I want to show my vision and the vision of my artists to the local audience. Art Rotterdam is the best place to gain that recognition. That’s why I decided to take a leap of faith and participate in the Main Section this year.”

To make his plan succeed, Diez aims to secure the best work from his best artists for Art Rotterdam. This might seem obvious, but for instance, Ian Waelder has a solo exhibition at Carlier | Gebauer in Berlin just before the fair. Securing new work requires some persuasion on Diez’s part. “I approach my artists and explain the importance of this step for me. I need to show people in the Netherlands that I can bring the best of one of my most important artists. Most of the works I receive will be new works made specifically for the fair.”

Tilde
Diez’s approach to his craft stems from his previous role as the leader of the non-profit art space Tilde, which he ran from 2019 to 2022. For his projects, he showed well-known names such as Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Laure Prouvost, and Moyra Davey. “More is possible when you have a non-profit space instead of a gallery, even with well-known artists, as there are no conflicting commercial interests,” Diez explains. At the same time, it allowed him to build a vast network of artists and curators.

Tilde was housed in Diez’s two-room apartment in Amsterdam. This meant that collaborations were highly personal, with ongoing consultations with artists that, metaphorically speaking, began at breakfast. “All the artists I work with are passionate about art, its creation, and art history. The work I show must have a certain political or social relevance or a connection to art history.”

Diez was inspired to adopt this organic way of working by his friend Marja Bloem, the partner of the late Seth Siegelaub, one of the key figures in early conceptual art. Siegelaub had a gallery in New York in the late 1960s that stood out for its groundbreaking presentation methods. The 2015 retrospective on Siegelaub at the Stedelijk Museum was a revelation for Diez: “He did things with passion. He quickly realized that the contemporary art world wasn’t for him, so he stopped his gallery. His approach felt very natural to me, especially for work that wasn’t in vogue at the time.”

Art Rotterdam
One notable aspect of Tilde’s programming was the combination of contemporary artists with established names, such as pairing the young Nora Turato with Lilly van der Stokker. Diez plans to do something similar at Art Rotterdam. This time, there won’t be an architectural intervention but an elegant interplay of high-quality secondary market works, sourced together with Paul van Esch, and contemporary pieces by Ian Waelder, Jessica Wilson or Rasoul Ashtary. Diez plans to group them around three major themes in art history: history and identity, portraiture, and abstraction.

“Because of the importance of art history for my artists , it’s very good to place them in context. Many people don’t know my artists yet because they don’t exhibit in the Netherlands. That’s why I’m showing them alongside an established name.”

Diez can already reveal a glimpse: for the theme of history, he plans to present a work by Anselm Kiefer, who will have exhibitions at both the Stedelijk Museum and the Van Gogh Museum at that time, alongside works by Ian Waelder.

Written by Wouter van den Eijkel