Meet Britte Geijer and Zachary Korol-Gold of Garden in Echo Park/Angelino Heights

Today we’d like to introduce you to Britte Geijer and Zachary Korol-Gold.

Garden actually began shortly after our own relationship – we met in March of 2016 and opened our first exhibition, a solo by Laura Schawelka, in December of that year.

Britte had already been working in commercial galleries at the time, and Zach had just moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Brown University and began a job as an assistant at Francois Ghebaly that summer. There was an open room in Zach’s apartment, and we decided that while it was free we would curate exhibitions in the space. We did two shows in that first year. Zach came up with the name Garden because of Britte’s passion for gardening and flower arranging, but also because the name evokes growth, cultivation, and care.

In August 2017, we moved in together into our current home, a city-protected Victorian carriage house in Angelino Heights. We decided to move the gallery with us, putting Garden in our second bedroom/sunroom. Unusually for a gallery, the room is filled with windows that overlook the rest of the neighborhood and our backyard vegetable garden. After spending the rest of that year doing studio visits and prepping the space, we opened the gallery again at the beginning of 2018 with five exhibitions a year.

At first, we just thought of Garden as a place for us to be creative and show emerging art that we both cared about. As time has passed, the project has helped us learn more about ourselves, what work and practices we are most interested in, and find our own curatorial vision. Garden has also enabled us to meet incredible people throughout our field and build a community around challenging and ambitious art.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Truthfully, running Garden has been a remarkably smooth road. Of course, every exhibition has its own unique puzzles to solve, whether those be a complicated installation or logistics, or last minute changes, but those are all relatively small problems in the end. We are so lucky to have been able to work with such generous and inspiring artists who have chosen to work with us and our space.

Please tell us about Garden.
Curatorially, we have narrowed our focus to exhibiting contemporary ecological art. The more we dive into showing this kind of work, the more expansive the term seems to be – we have shown work that incorporates natural motifs and imagery, addresses environmental themes, or imagines possible futures on our planet. Essentially, what we define as ecological is work that understands itself critically within the context of not only art but larger world (eco)systems.

In addition to openings, we host an event for each exhibition. Programs have spanned from workshops, panels, discussions, or poetry readings. We think this is a great way to collaborate with artists on a creative or more academic event and welcome a variety of visitors into our space, fostering conversation and cross-pollination.

Garden is also only one aspect of our professional lives – we’ve always worked at other jobs that we are passionate about in the art world. Between the two of us, we have worked for artist studios, galleries, museums, and auction houses on top of running our project space gallery. We’ve essentially seen every side of the business! Right now, Britte is the Assistant Director at Kayne Griffin Corcoran and Zach is the Studio Director for a photographer. Given our experience, we would say that we specialize in knowing what it takes to put on an exhibition, and giving artists a platform to develop and show their best work.

How do you, personally, define success? What’s your criteria, the markers you’re looking out for, etc?
For Garden, success is measured by many moments – but mostly, it is defined by the time we get to spend with artists, the community, and each other through this project. We feel that making space for rigorous, experimental work and dynamic dialogue is our success. It’s also extremely satisfying when an artist makes a connection through our space, or if their work from their show with us is written about in art journals or magazines.

We are excited about our future programming – in September, we are opening up an exhibition by Yola Monakhov Stockton, and in November is Sarah McMenimen’s solo exhibition. Jesse Clark is also hosting a special event at the end of October. And next year, we’re planning solo shows with Alice Wang, Sarah Rosalena Brady, and Dan Levenson.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1345 Kellam Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90026
• Website: https://grdn.la/
• Phone: 323-863-5428
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credit:
Portrait photographed by Massimiliano Costantini; Exhibition views: Spencer Longo, photographed by Ian Byers-Gamber, Jeffrey Stuker, Genevieve Belleveau, photographed by Ian Byers-Gamber, A Curious Herbal (Genevieve Belleveau, Brian Khek, Dwyer Kilcollin, Arden Surdam, Naoki Sutter-Shudo, and Alice Wang), photographed by Jeff McLane, Challenger Deep (Paul Carlo Esposito, Delia Jürgens, Sarah McMenimen, and Charisse Pearlina Weston), Weird Rain (Brody Albert, laub and Jennifer Moon, Spencer Longo, Sarah Manuwal, and Rob Reynolds), photographed by Jeff McLane

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