Why did you decide to found your own gallery, the Galerie Eric Dupont in Paris, sixteen years ago ?

At the origin of my commitment to contemporary art world are the artists. I was a young collector and I met some artists including Paul Pagk and Damien Cabanes who encouraged me to open a gallery. It was at the beginning of the nineties, we were all around thirty and we decided to go forward together. We were naive and enthusiastic, sharing the different experiences we had in common to create the Eric Dupont Gallery. From the start, we were absolutely convinced that we could not fail.

- What is the role of a gallery owner who shows emerging and mid-career artists ?

On one hand, I think that there is nothing more important that keeping one’s eyes open, being lucid enough to challenge the work in progress ; on the other hand, a gallerist is in the ideal position to reassure an artist when he or she crosses a new period in his work or in his career.

To be recognized and successful an artist needs a great deal of support — he has to be shown all over the world to meet new people likely to become captivated by his work. My role is to travel and to bring my choices as a message.

I defend a point of view on art : I do not follow the stream ; I participate in its creation. My work brings things from shadow to light. I am a “passeur”, a bridge. My role is to help people analyse what is going on in contemporary art — to understand how the artists I work with are involved in a history of shapes and forms, how we can guess that, here, there is something strong growing and growing.

- How does a gallerist build an artist’s career ?

Time is the best ally, but an experienced gallerist also can be successful in a short time period. It took me many years to build Damien Cabanes’ career, but for the Swedish photographer Regina Virserius or for the Algerian sculptor and video artist Yazid Oulab, the response to their work was so quick and intense that we are contacted every week by people from all over the world everywhere. This year, I will participate in many art fairs including Miami, New York, Paris, Brussels, Basel and maybe London. If the response is so strong it is due to a combination of three things. First, I work with very good artists, second, I work internationally and, third but not least, there are new collectors every week involved in the art market.

- Could you tell us some of the success stories that you created for your artists ?

The most exciting stories are about the success I’ve have with Damien Cabanes and, in another proportion, Didier Mencoboni, French mid-career artists who were young when I met them sixteen years ago. Damien is now in about a hundred private collections all around the world and there is no art fair where I don’t meet collectors surprised and happy to meet such a great artist.

Regina Virserius is another success story. Her photos are so powerful that she has immediately established a reputation among collectors. In several collections she already hangs next to the most famous photographers in the world.

If I am what I am right now, it is because I met artists who helped me to look at the world differently. I can also imagine if they are still so active, it is because, in the early nineties, I had a deep intuition that world and the tastes would change very quickly. I found the energy to move and keep going with the choices I believed in strongly. Today, we are living an extraordinary adventure that belongs to no one else and that we are able to share with everyone.

Eric Dupont Gallerist

WHITEWALL n° 36, Summer 2007