25 YEARS GALERIE SUSANNE ZANDER

Entrance to the first premises, Genterstrasse 28, Cologne, © Delmes & Zander / Galerie Susanne Zander

25 Years Galerie Susanne Zander

Since its founding year in 1988, Galerie Susanne Zander has come to establish itself internationally as one of the leading galleries for Outsider Art and Art Brut, dedicating its program from the onset exclusively to outstanding marginal artistic positions both historical as well as contemporary. In recent years, the gallery owners Nicole Delmes and Susanne Zander have become increasingly interested in the what can be termed as "Conceptual Outsider Art," raising new questions about common practices of curation and notions of reception, production and historical contextualization of singular artistic positions that are labeled as "Outsider Art" and which at the same time resort to common strategies of contemporary art.

Susanne Zander has co-curated a series of pioneering exhibitions for museums and art societies amongst which "Obsession" (with Morton Bartlett, Henry Darger, 2000, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, DE) and "The Message - The Medium as an Artist" (2008, Museum Bochum, DE) and has played a significant advisory role in the exhibition series "Secret Universe" (2011 - 2013, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, DE). The gallery releases publications on a regular basis such as Horst Ademeit – Living in The Radiant Cold (2010), The Message - Art and Occultism (2008), Foma Jaremtschuk (2008), Obsession (2000) or more recently Margret: Chronik einer Affäre (2012).

Over the last 25 years the gallery has brought the art of the Outsider to the attention of collectors and curators, positioning formerly unknown artists such as Miroslav Tichy and Henry Darger onto the art market as early as the 1990's. The discovery of Horst Ademeit in 2008 brought the gallery into the focus of contemporary Outsider Art unleashing once again the debate on common notions of "inside" and "outside" art.