The Archivist
Silvia Omedes
Barcelona

While Spain’s Centro Nacional de Fotografía may be set to open in Soria in 2026, surprisingly, the country lacks a national museum dedicated to photography. In 2001, Silvia Omedes decided to do something to support documentary photographers and established her photojournalism archive and showroom, Fundació Photographic Social Vision, in Barcelona. “We think of our premises as a bubble of resistance because we’re defending important photography that would otherwise never see the light of day,” she says.

The non-profit focuses on documentary work created between the 1960s and the 1980s, a period that encompassed Spain’s political transition from dictatorship to democracy. “Franco controlled culture to such an extent that we’re still undoing this oppression today,” says Omedes, who thinks that the art form is still not entirely respected in Spain. “At Arco Madrid, Spain’s international contemporary art fair, we still see very little photography,” she says, similarly bemoaning Spanish museums for not showcasing enough of the medium. “If we want to get home-grown photographers into private collections, they need visibility in the public ones first.”

The foundation currently represents 10 archives. It owns the rights to the estate of Joana Biarnés, Spain’s first female photojournalist. Since 2013 the team has been preserving Biarnés’s vast archive by treating the negatives. The foundation is funded partly through its own services, projects and private sponsors, and partly by the Spanish and autonomous governments of Catalonia, and the grant bears Biarnés’s name in honour of her contributions to the canon.

Looking ahead, the foundation’s focus is to digitise its archives so that they can be shared online. “We have had a presence at Anne Clergue Galerie and Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival but our archives don’t have international visibility,” says Omedes. Lacking the capacity to represent more portfolios, the foundation teaches archive owners how to manage theirs independently. “The government doesn’t offer support so the heirs of large photography collections come to us for help with IP issues, grants and portfolios,” she says. “But we can’t help them all.”

“Politicians are finally listening to us,” says Omedes, who hopes that the archive becomes a lens through which to better understand Spanish society. “Photography teaches us that there’s no future without visiting the past.”
fundacionpsv.org

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The Consultant
Edward Mitterrand
Geneva

The Mitterrand name might be synonymous with French politics but Edward, a relative of late president François Mitterrand, chose commercial art instead. His art-dealer father, Jean-Gabriel, established Galerie Mitterrand in Paris’s Marais district in 1988, and together they founded the Domaine du Muy sculpture park in the south of France in 2014.

Alongside these projects, Mitterrand began working on an advisory basis, drawing on his learnings as a gallerist. Mitterrand Art Advisory works with individuals, interior architects and financial institutions. “We’re not in the high-volume market,” he says. “I only advise four or five clients at a time because I continue to dedicate time to the Paris gallery.” 

Mitterrand took the helm of Galerie Mitterrand in 2021 from his father. He now works with clients who are curating for the walls of their office or home, ensuring that he develops a thorough understanding of their taste so that he can source works from private owners, dealers and auctions.

Based in Geneva, Mitterrand has direct access to artworks because of his background as a gallerist but his services are independent. The real value of employing a consultant, he says, is in the mitigation of intellectual, shipping and tax risks. “Some buyers think that we should cut the middleman and go straight to the galleries,” he says. “But there’s an element of risk at every stage of the art-buying process.” 

And without the same overheads as galleries, advisors are relatively inexpensive. His best tip? “Take it slowly. There are only so many walls in your house and once they’re filled, there’s no going back.”
advisory.art

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The Guardian
Ben Jun 
Seoul

Since the arrival of Frieze Seoul in 2022, the South Korean capital has been busy establishing its reputation on the international art scene. Now The FreePort, a new storage facility located within the Free Trade Zone, hopes to provide the cutting-edge infrastructure that’s needed to transform the city into a global art hub. Its vice-president, Ben Jun, tells us why now feels like a tipping point for Seoul’s artistic ambitions.

What does The FreePort offer?
We have one of the largest and most advanced art-storage facilities in Asia, covering 40,000 sq m. We’re located within the Incheon Free Trade Zone and directly connected to Incheon Airport, so we’re very convenient. There are biometric access controls, 24/7 surveillance, a climate-controlled environment and even a butler service for high-net-worth collectors and public institutions. 

Why does Seoul need this infrastructure?
We are a family business and my father has been in the industry for more than 30 years. We found it hard to use the traditional art-logistics companies here when we needed them and they seemed to focus on their existing clients rather than new ones. We wanted to create a more friendly, personalised service. 

What are your long-term hopes for Seoul’s art scene?
We hope to make the city a competitive art centre. We want it to be the next Hong Kong. But we also want to show that our collectors here are not just interested in investment; they’re also people who are really looking for cultural experiences.
thefreeport.com

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The Museum Director
Arturo Galansino 
Florence

When contemporary artworks are buddied up with their historical ancestors, context is crucial. One of the sector’s evergreen questions is, “How do you show new art in an old place?” Among the museum directors who can be relied on to answer this wisely is Arturo Galansino, the director-general of Florence’s Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Galansino is currently presenting Tracey Emin’s wide-ranging Sex and Solitude exhibition within the walls of the Renaissance marvel. 

The British artist originally planned to “focus on her new output – a reborn passion for painting and sculpture”, says Galansino. “These are very traditional techniques, so it made sense to represent them in a historical environment.” 

Could the 16th-century Palazzo Strozzi, with its wealth of Renaissance history, encourage an artist to take the long view of their career? “In the end, her show includes more tapestry and embroidery, as well as her work as a poet,” says Galansino. “So the exhibition has become a way to look at her whole career in a thematic, rather than a chronological, way.”

Since 2015, the Palazzo Strozzi has been staging a series of radical shows by titans of contemporary art, including China’s Ai Weiwei, Danish-born Olafur Eliasson and US painter and sculptor Jeff Koons (who visited Galansino the day before monocle speaks to him and is, according to the director-general, “a very good friend of Florence”).

When the Palazzo Strozzi showed Electronic Renaissance – an exhibition by the late, great US video artist Bill Viola that explicitly celebrated the city and its art history – in 2017, the theme of new art in old places truly clicked for Galansino. “In Bill’s case, the Old Masters were so inspirational for him,” he says. “The dialogue between new and old was – and remains – so strong.”

Next up, former enfant terrible Emin will give up the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi to the 15th-century work of Fra Angelico, the early-Renaissance altarpiece maestro and Dominican friar. “What does Angelico offer us?” says Galansino. “Brilliant perspective.”

‘Tracey Emin: Sex and Solitude’ runs at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi until 20 July. ‘Angelico’ opens on 26 September.
palazzostrozzi.org

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The Framer
Frame London
London

Frame London’s premises are tucked away in an unassuming corner of east London populated with building merchants, but its humble appearance belies the artistry within. Its founders, Harry Burden, Vicky Bulmer and Emily Taylor, craft wooden, acrylic and aluminium frames for some of the world’s most prestigious galleries and art fairs. “Creating a bespoke frame is as personal as tailoring a Savile Row suit,” says Burden, who, with Bulmer, trained and worked at the Royal Academy of Arts’ framing department until it was dissolved in 2014.

Frame London came next. “After working for an institution, we wanted to have our own service that wouldn’t be driven by commercial targets,” says Bulmer. Their skills in carpentry, framing and mounting made for a successful start-up that has now grown to 12 employees and worked with the likes of New York’s Grimm and David Zwirner, Stevenson gallery in South Africa and Melbourne’s Anna Schwartz Gallery.

Commissions have included a medieval altarpiece framed in situ at London’s V&A and wall paintings in the Houses of Parliament, plus some wacky challenges, such as a fossilised fish and a mummified cat. For artist Caroline Walker, the team made a 3.5-metre-long collapsible frame for a diptych that could travel in two pieces to New York and then be reassembled.

“We want to encourage longevity,” says Taylor. Frame London makes bespoke wood mouldings, finishes and museum-grade conservation wheat-starch glue (for mounting works on paper) in-house. “It’s labour intensive and time consuming but clients know they’re investing in something that will age gracefully,” she says. It shows there’s a healthy appetite for craftmanship. “You might still choose a mass-produced Ikea frame but that’s a different proposition,” says Burden.
framelondon.com