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The leisure club MOGADISHNI | by Helena Sundström In 2000, Christian Chapelle left his fine art studies in Aarhus, Denmark to open the leisure club MOGADISHNI in Copenhagen. The intriguing name has served the gallery well, as it prompts questions from visitors and draws them into spontaneous discussion with the gallery staff. The gallery’s brochure explains the name through a story that tells the tale of MOGADISHNI’s establishment ‘in a sinister part of Copenhagen in defiance of the local mob’s attempt to prevent it’. The ‘mob’ is envisioned as tmade up of erritorial and power-hungry galleries, who have been known to demonstrate their power by killing young promising artists with popcorn and champagne. Written by Chapelle, the story seems to be a satire on the Copenhagen art scene, and is rife with rumours and in-jokes. Apart from solo exhibitions and group shows, MOGADISHNI has also curated public projects, such as ‘The Fantastic Roadshow’ (2000), a collaboration with Copenhagen Homeless Radio. The gallery was initially supported by the Danish Ministry of Culture’s development fund, but when this funding was withdrawn, MOGADISHNI was obliged to reinvent itself as a commercial gallery. Its status now is no longer as an alternative to the commercial sector, but as a small-scale, experimental venture that emphasises a social as much as an aesthetic context for contemporary art. MOGADISHNI’s inaugural exhibition as a commercial space in November 2001 was called ‘Do you trust your gallerist? ’. Chapelle included in the exhibition a photograph of himself decked out in a balaclava decorated with flowers – a wry comment on his own disbelief that any artist could trust him to represent them. It also shows his humorous approach to the often tense relationship between artists and their dealers. Chapelle describes MOGADISHNI as a ‘potential place for everything’, run on a strict ‘no worries’ policy – hence its name, which is closer in spirit to a leisure club than to a conventional, commercial gallery. It focuses on young international contemporary art and currently represents Peter Geschwind (Sweden), Gillion Grantsaan (Surinam), Tiina Ketara (Finland) and Andreas Schulenberg (Germany). As well as showing at FAIR, MOGADISHNI will be representing the activities of these artists and others at ARCO`02`s Cutting Edge Section. Helena Sundström
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