Interval Gallery is here to break art world bad habits

Some of the best things happen by chance. For father-and-son duo David and Jacob Gryn, it was serendipity that brought them to their Georgian townhouse in Clerkenwell – a space now transformed into their new gallery. After months of renovation, Interval opened its doors in September with a striking debut: new works by LA-based artist Petra Cortright paired alongside Old Master paintings and medieval manuscripts. The result is a dialogue between centuries – the blueprint for the gallery’s programming. David, a longtime champion of digital art, founded Artprojx in 2001 and later Daata, a pioneering platform for commissioning and collecting digital works. From 2010 to 2017 he was the curator of film and sound at Art Basel in Miami Beach. Jacob, a musician, brings a fresh rhythm to the space, most recently collaborating with Petra on a new video work currently on view.

Together, they’ve built a home and a gallery that bridges old and new worlds, as Izzy Bilkus finds when she pays them a visit.

Izzy Bilkus: Ok, let’s start by talking about how this space came into your lives.

David Gryn: Jacob discovered this place. It’s old Georgian and needed renovation. He said “Dad, we could have a gallery,” and I hadn’t actually thought of the idea before. I’ve been working online for the last 25 years.

Jacob Gryn: I found the place last year. I was initially looking for somewhere for my mum and dad to move. I got very involved in that process. And then they went away for a bit, and I just kept on looking. I was looking for a small flat somewhere, and then I came across this place, and it needed a lot of work.

IB: Yeah, I saw the reno clips on your Instagram. It looked very intense.

DG: It lasted about six months.

JG: Yeah, it needed a lot of work. I messaged them like “guys you need to come and see this.” We were super excited about it. I also got very involved in the renovation. What started as an initial thought of turning it into a gallery very quickly turned into we could have a gallery and try and put together both our interests. My mum, Jane Bustin, is a painter as well. I was raised by two artists, so this all felt very natural. Dad’s worked in digital art forever, so what we’re trying to do here is to merge our interests. My interests have always been in historic art. Growing up, I loved going to Old Master galleries and visiting Frieze Masters.

IB: I feel like you rarely hear that from a young person.

JG: Yeah, more and more people I talk to now are interested in older work. So for every show we do, we’re going to try and work with contemporary artists alongside historical works. Our first show here is with Petra Cortright. She’s quite prolific in the digital art space. The first collaboration we ever did with her was for Daata. I was about 16 and was asked to make some music for her work. Because we’re not representing artists, the space is a bit more malleable. At the back we’ve also added a kitchen, because the idea is also to host events and supper clubs. The whole idea of the building is that it’s a bit more like a project space.

IB: I’d love you to walk me through the exhibition.

JG: So it’s a mix of some 17th and 18th-century works paired with Petra’s pieces that she made specifically for the show. She’s taken source imagery from the old works on show and layered them up. She works with this printer in Brooklyn, who then prints these works on aluminum. We worked with Old Master dealers Rafael Valls in St James’s and also have some medieval manuscript leaves from Sam Fogg. You can clearly see she’s taken elements from both of these works.

IB: Can you tell me a bit more about Petra?

JG: She’s kind of most famous for her video works and is particularly popular in America. Every English person we speak to who comes in thinks the works are beautiful, but they don’t know who she is. During Frieze Week, every American we spoke to would be like “OMG you have Petra Cortright!?”

DG: We wanted to keep the building itself and not over-renovate and make it wacky. We were trying to bring it back into history. We kept some walls as they were and built Georgian floors throughout.

JG: We’re really trying to bring some focus to the space as well as the artwork. There are so many galleries popping up every few months that are just another gallery with very clean, white walls, you know; the ‘perfect’ space. But what we’re trying to do is really use the space to our advantage and appreciate it in the same way that you would an artwork.

DG: Quite a lot of our neighbours come in, which we love. So often things open up in areas and have no connection to where they are. A few other people have seen what we’ve done, and are trying to emulate it, which is nice – the more the merrier. We know that you need more galleries nearby to have a successful group of galleries. There are quite a few great ones, Ginny on Frederick, Brunette Coleman, a. SQUIRE, South Parade…

JG: The idea of competition doesn’t really exist to us. It’s been interesting meeting different gallerists and people on the scene who are younger and have a slightly different approach –  they realise we’re not trying to steal their artists or anything like that.

DG: My previous work was collaborating with galleries, and I worked with art fairs to show video, digital media, and other forms of art. And it was always about: how do you get galleries to work together? So that’s where my head’s always at. And Jacob’s a musician, so he often works collaboratively. I think the art world tends to go into silos a lot. But we’re already having great results from taking this plunge.

“What’s your dream gallery?” people often ask us. I feel like we’re creating that now, in a way. You know when you walk into a church and see this beautiful icon ahead of you, or a shaft of light through a stained glass window – I’d cross over cities or countries to have that one moment. One of our ambitions is to try and emulate that kind of feeling.

IB: I love a good church. I definitely felt that ‘moment’ you mention, walking into the basement room and seeing the backlit works. How do you guys work together?

JG: It’s actually been a very easy process. My dad and I are very close. It’s refreshing to be able to actually speak how you really want to – you don’t have to be super polite about things. You can just be direct and get things done quickly.

DG: There’s also an instinctive understanding, because we’ve been that close since Jacob was born. We’ve been looking at art together since he was really young. You learn to look at things together. When he was young, we’d go to Frieze and mutually fall in love with works of art. We make decisions without always saying things.

JG: The artists we’ve been working with have really felt this loving atmosphere in the space. We’re also trying to make sure we’re working with really nice people, and we want it to feel like a space that is genuinely for good, rather than, you know…

IB: Evil? 🙂

JG: Well, yeah, haha. Like, purely for financial gain or something.

IB: How do you find the artists you want to work with?

DG: We’ve made a lot of good connections with both older and younger generations of artists over the years. I’ve been in the art world a long time and Jacob has made some great connections through his music work.

JG: We’re approaching artists whose work we truly think is beautiful, rather than because they’re going to sell, or because they’re the hottest thing right now. In terms of programming, we’re trying to go about it organically and not overthink it.

DG: I’ve had conversations with Petra around seemingly quite trite terms like ‘beauty’ and ‘sublime’, but these really mean everything to us. We’re really happy for that to be part of our aim. We think of a gallery or a museum as respite.. When you go there, you should be able to switch off from everything else going on in the world. Somebody came in the other day who was trying to see the political side of all the work, and I just explained that this is actually the antithesis of that – it’s the idea that anyone from any background can come and find some kind of solace or enjoy the moment of being with art. It sounds a bit fuddy-duddy…

IB: We were talking about this recently at Plaster – if the end goal of art can just be pleasure and enjoyment.

JG: That’s the goal of this whole space – pure enjoyment. Coming from the music world, I know a lot of people feel very intimidated by the art world. I mean, most people in the art world also feel like that. So we really wanted this space to feel accessible and open. If you don’t know anything about art, that’s perfect. You can still come in and enjoy and maybe learn something.

IB: It’s important for galleries to put on shows where there’s no presumed knowledge from their audience.

DG: Exactly. And of all the things, what’s thrilled me the most was seeing Petra’s video work downstairs next to the Jan van Os floral painting. To me, there’s no hierarchy. When I’ve been to Frieze Masters compared to regular Frieze, there’s a kind of difference in how established the artists are. What we want to do is have shows where these different works sit together.

IB: Where did the gallery name come from?

DG: It comes from what we mentioned earlier, where we want the gallery to feel like an interval in the day.

JG: We went through so many names, but this one just felt right because of our interest in the historic and the contemporary, the older and the younger, you know.

IB: What’s it like living where you work?

DG: I love it, I really do. The building has a really lovely sense of self.

IB: What’s been the hardest part?

DG: I’ve been in the art world a long time, so I’ve seen before where it’s taken a long time for people to adjust to your existence – to know about what you’re doing and about your programme.

JG: Yeah, the hardest part has probably been getting people to know about us. We’re not in Mayfair, there’s no footfall and people walking past all the time. We’re on a quite quiet street in Clerkenwell, so we’ve really had to try and spread the word. But we’ve loved settling into our neighbourhood and the community. It all goes back to our aim of being an open and loving space, which is, for some reason, a crazy concept in the art world.

DG: I think most people in the art world tend to start off with passion, but then everything gets down to money, and then it becomes all about the financial systems around it, which includes who comes in and how you treat people. Sometimes it loses its magic. We want to try and stay as true as possible to ourselves and hopefully not be overrun by those needs that can change it into something that sucks the joy out of it. That’s actually the hardest work.

JG: We love talking to everyone who comes in. Dad is such a people person. You know if you visit, you’re at least going to have a great conversation, because there’s a very friendly, chatty person who’s willing to give all their time to you. We don’t think the majority of galleries are doing that. Interestingly, this street is now turning into a bit of a father-son hotspot: like the guys who just took over the restaurant on the corner, the electric shop, and the coffee shop.

DG: We’ve become good friends with all these different people, because there’s a shared trust that we’re all doing something with love.

IB: Jacob, is this your first proper plunge into the art world?

JG: In a way, yes. I’ve done some other bits and bobs, but what I’ve found interesting is that when we speak to certain people in the arts, some people are really great, but some do treat the gallery like it’s just my dad’s thing, and that I’m just on the sidelines. A lot of people don’t realise how much of a split effort it is. Every decision is shared between us.

DG: Wisdom isn’t the domain of the elderly. We can all learn things from each other at any age. Jacob and I are very close, so there are emotions attached, but there’s a great joy in giving in sometimes and allowing some breathing room.