As the founding director of one of the premier international tastemaker galleries, Peres Projects, Javier Peres is the Patriarch of a generation of cool-kid artists who he nurtures to commercial, critical acclaim and refined intellectual sophistication of purpose. Few names are more perfectly matched to what they refer to than Daddy, the in-house quarterly magazine/ exhibition catalogue series for Peres Projects. And to the coterie of sparkling art stars in his roster, including Terence Koh, Amie Dicke, Agathe Snow and Dan Colen, Peres shines like a Big Daddy at the Bacchanalian bashes he regularly hosts or attends in LA and now, full-time, in Berlin.
Here we share healing and healthy juices and little delights at Mitte’s Chen Che and discuss, art, chic and the city we’ve both fully adopted as our beloved homebase.
Ana Finel Honigman: I am really glad that people are taking Berlin seriously, as more than a project space area.
Javier Peres: Berlin, in many ways, is more serious than just about anywhere.
AFH: It’s more serious than London or New York because seriousness requires levels of authenticity and reality, which haven’t existed in either city for decades. The fact that Hirst came here to regain credibility vindicates its validity. Any other city could have been too close to Hirst does Dubai.
JP: When a gallery like Spruthe Magers closes Cologne and Munich, that means a lot. They are German. They are the quintessential German gallery. And they decided to put all their money and investment in Germany into Berlin. That is a huge reflection of the city’s power. It’s the same with CFA. They should have done London. But they didn’t. They put their full faith here [Berlin].
AFH: And they just opened a project space in Charlottenburg. They are reinvesting further into Berlin, instead of creating little outposts all over.
JP: I can’t exactly pinpoint when it started here, but suddenly now there is this place, and Kimchi Princess and all those little cute Mexican places popping up. Food follows art. Look at London, before the YBAs [the UK-dominant Young British Artists], London’s food scene was busted. Now, Damien Hirst is filling a castle bigger than Graceland with art and everyone wants to eat at Saint Johns.
AFH: It was an internationally known fact that Brits just ingested sustenance—they didn’t eat food. I’ve lived there for seven years, and it’s definitely still just shit on the ground-level, but there is a fetishised foodie culture that has just taken over the British imagination and that’s definitely tied, socially and geographically, to the YBAs.
JP: London is legit. But we have to be realistic about Berlin. It is still really empty. It is huge and it is not London, which is literally crawling with people. All those masses who can’t make it anywhere else, they can come here.
AFH: Don’t invite them!
JP: Trust me, I’m not. But, baby, you know that they know. And they are right. There is room here. And it’s so easy to be here. I’ve been here for five years and I don’t speak a word of German. I’ve never even tried. I never took a class. I semi-signed up for a tutor but cancelled before we met. I just don’t see the point.
AFH: I am so glad to finally have a role model. I just feel guilty when other Americans, or some Germans, guilt me about it. But I lived in London accidentally eavesdropping on other people’s bullshit and I’m happier maintaining my idea that Germans are the most brilliant, mature and sophisticated people on earth. I can’t risk being disillusioned.
JP: I am a total ex-pat. I am whatever you want me to be. Project it on to me. But I have Euros and I am going to pay cash.
AFH: This is the other amazing thing about Berlin. It doesn’t want to fuck you. London pierces me through every pore until I am hemorrhaging money within days. New York is just too tempting. But Berlin doesn’t encourage you to be stupid.
JP: Absolutely. Where else can you get a visa this easily just for being an artist? I used to do immigration law in the US. It was harder to get Nicole Kidman a visa to do a movie than it is for an artist, who has never even shown, to get a visa to live in Berlin. An unknown Canadian artist has an easier time moving here than Nicole Kidman does to make a movie in the US.
AFH: It’s paradise. I love paying taxes because I love being here and I love supporting this city. This city makes me believe in good things.
JP: I like Germans. They are who they are and they are cool with it.
AFH: And they are mature about having been who they were, with makes them who they are. They’re not the Swiss. Those guys are jerks.
JP: They are no polite.
AFH: Do you think it’s all changing and will just become another lame, shiny, city soon?
JP: No. Why do you think that?
AFH: More shiny stuff keeps popping up. Soho House scares me. It can’t last, right?
JP: It was packed.
AFH: But it doesn’t have a cultural foothold here. It’s just so inorganic.
JP: I love it. I am so excited to go there and have my artists there. The service is amazing. I am having all my dinners there.
AFH: I’ll go to your dinners and not complain.
JP: You know you’ll love it. I went with John Kleckner and we were getting so hammered on the most delicious mojitos that I have ever had, that we didn’t even notice the food was late arriving. They were better than Miami and they were eight Euros. In Miami, they are twenty. They halved our bill and apologised profusely.
AFH: That is kinda cute.
JP: You love it. I hope it stays. It’s just easy.
AFH: But, as a symbol, it’s problematic. I don’t like the influx of shiny shit.
JP: Look at you. You’re not a Berliner, you’re an East Berliner circa GDR days. My problems with Berlin were just with the culinary arts and the service industry. At least at Soho House they say “sir, sir, sir” and “no” is not in their vocabulary. And the food is delicious. Which, I love. The crowd was a bit West Berlin. I don’t want to be them and I don’t want to hang out with them. But I like that they exist. As long as they don’t bother me. If they were, I’d have slapped them. But we all stayed in our corners. I like that they all have their sweaters tied the same way and their Kelly bags. And they’re fine with me. That’s all that I care about. You are who you are. I am who I am. And that’s that.
AFH: One should never be intolerant. Are you looking at a lot of new work recently?
JP: I hadn’t been. I hadn’t been thinking about anyone but the people who I am showing. But I just started thinking that now is the time. I am going on studio visits again. I want to have a second space because a lot of younger artists don’t know what to do with these huge spaces.
AFH: More huge, less shiny.
JP: Don’t worry. There isn’t really an influx. If you look at the landscape, the entire landscape is huge. There are just so many spaces here. We’re finally getting shiny shit, also. But it’s only now and it’s not changing anything. People used to steal stuff from my shows in Kreuzberg. They would just walk out with it. I’m not that nice. That still happens here. It's that badass and that is not changing.
[Images: Javier Peres was photographed at Peres Projects, by Maxime Ballesteros]
