ENGLISH TEXTS
Zeuxis
Amélie du Chalard is the founder of Zeuxis, a young contemporary art gallery whose hybrid, avant-garde format renews the genre and does away with the rigid conventions normally associated with art galleries. To mark the opening of her second Parisian establishment, we went to meet this young thirtysomething, who certainly knows how to talk to today’s new collectors.
Amélie du Chalard’s contemporary art gallery is called Zeuxis. The latter was a Greek painter from the 5th century BC, one of the earliest known painters in the history of mankind, whose skill at creating an illusion of depth makes him a precursor of trompe l'oeil effects. The story goes that his paintings were so realistic that when Zeuxis presented a painting of grapes, birds came down to peck them. Incidentally, Zeuxis was also the code name of one of the last files that Amélie worked on before leaving the banking sector: she was working with group of craft artists whose main activity was… you guessed it, trompe l'oeil. Say no more!
Her decision to found a gallery certainly wasn’t a coincidence, in fact it would seem to be a natural consequence of her family background: Amélie’s mother is an artist and her father is a corporate lawyer. Drawing on this eclectic heritage, she brings to bear a talent for both contemporary art and finance. She began her career at a young age at Rothschild & Cie, whilst in parallel beginning to collect the work of artists she was fond of. At the bank, her professional entourage was fascinated by her acquisitions and Amélie realised that they had a very real interest in beautiful things, in particular works of art, but that they also found galleries intimidating. The gallery format was off-putting, the environment cold and elitist and very few artists were actually on show. Making the most of her keen eye and good taste, Amélie began to advise her colleagues and professional contacts. In 2015, she said goodbye to the world of finance and created Zeuxis, which started out as a commercial website. It wasn’t long before she set up her first “Art Room”, an apartment/gallery where potential customers could see the artworks in a home-like setting. “The idea was to stand the current system on its head. Instead of imposing something to look at, I decided to present the art works in a way that corresponded to what the clients wanted to see and depending on what they had discovered on the website. A traditional gallery displays art on its walls and that’s that.” The initiative was a success and in less than 18 months Amélie had sold 400 pieces.
In 2016, she opened an Art Room in London, followed at the end of 2017 by a new one in Paris’ 9th arrondissement, ideally located just a stone’s throw from the Rue des Martyrs and Place Saint Georges. In this two-floor gallery that evokes a town house, the artworks are dotted here and there around the different rooms. The architects from Batiik preserved some old aspects of this building that dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries (such as the Eiffel and “Haussmannian” beams) whilst creating a chic, contemporary interior livened up by some refreshingly new and creative ideas. Top marks go to the terrazzo flooring made up of oversized fragments of marble in various shades from pink to pastel grey and the glazed wooden construction that creates the perfect bedroom setting.
A passion for abstraction
There’s no
