"Discreet" seems to be the perfect adjective to describe Parisian contemporary art gallery Gaudel de Stampa. Surely a good quality in an art world where secrets are jealously guarded. Apart from a minimalist website, you will not find much information about the gallery online, and only a few snapshots of the gallery founder, Denis Gaudel, mainly caught at openings. But speaking with insiders from the Paris art scene, "seriousness" and "good eye for quality" are the type of descriptions you might get.

Denis Gaudel combines curatorial knowledge, which he acquired working as an independent curator, and the skills of a gallerist, earned through his experience as the director of one of the most prestigious French galleries, Yvon Lambert. He opened his own gallery in the Belleville neighborhood six years ago, which is considered to be the new hub for contemporary art in the French capital, with new galleries promoting young and international artists and placing Paris even more attractively on the contemporary art map.

The gallery space used to be Gaudel's home, while the gallery name comes from his name and that of his life partner; a few personal elements that have come out of the wall of discretion. And in terms of art, it gets even more personal: to the question "What is the concept at the root of your gallery program?" Denis Gaudel answers: "No root, just the good artists I believe in, and I can meet."

His choices seem to be daring but well considered. "The gallery promotes mostly emergent artists," Denis Gaudel says. And he lists: "Dove Allouche, Jonathan Binet, Ida Ekblad, Andrea Romano, Lina Viste Grønli, Jessica Warboys... They all had their first solo show in the gallery, which attests to the gallery's commitment to its artists and their development since its creation."

Among the latest artists to enter the gallery roster are Italian artist Andrea Romano, US artist Julia Rommel, and Romanian artist Mihuț Boșcu Kafchin. Some of the better-known artists of the gallery are Jessica Warboys, Dove Allouche, and Ida Ekblad, who are all experiencing a growth phase. Their practice includes all kind of media: mostly drawing and photographs for Dove Allouche; film, performance, painting, sculpture for Jessica Warboys and Mihuț Boșcu Kafchin; sculpture for Lina Viste Grønli; paintings for Jonathan Binet and Ida Ekblad.

The quality of the gallery is getting recognized on an international level, as you can notice on the list of art fairs the gallery has succeeded in participating in the past few years. Already in its founding year, 2008, the gallery took part in Frieze and Fiac, followed by Artissima and Liste. In 2013 there was the jump from Liste to Art Basel. In the US you can find the gallery at Art Basel Miami Beach and at Independent in New York, which is the next appointment on the calendar, where the gallery will show Jessica Warboys and Andrea Romano in March.

Silvia Anna Barrilà

The freelance journalist Silvia Anna Barrilà is specialized in the art market. Since 2008 she has been writing for the Italian financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and for international media covering art, including Damn, Auction Central News, Artinvestor, and Monopol.

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