Esther Schipper
Martin Boyce , Scotland
"Unhome"
View of Martin Boyce’s Studio / Vue du studio de Martin Boyce, 2025. Courtesy the artist and / Courtoisie de l'artiste et Esther Schipper, Berlin/Paris/Seoul Photo © Martin Boyce Studio
Unhome by Scottish artist Martin Boyce (born in 1967) marks the artist’s second solo exhibition with Esther Schipper, and his first presentation in our Parisian gallery. This exhibition introduces an uncertainty in the perception of the intimate and the domestic space. In our Place Vendôme space, Martin Boyce will unveil, among other works, a new photographic series and a monumental sculpture in steel and hand-blown glass. These new works are part of a scenography that evokes both dilapidation and renovation, as a reflection on the passage of time.
Martin Boyce has reworked and reformulated iconic design objects, developing his own pictorial language based on a reading of the formal and conceptual histories of design, architecture and urban planning. In an extended act of homage, deconstruction and re-imagining, Boyce has, for example, assembled reconstructed versions of Charles and Ray Eames 1949 storage units or created mobiles with fragments of Arne Jacobsen’s chair from 1955. Since 2005, elements drawing on Jan and Joel Martel’s concrete trees constructed for the Robert Mallet-Stevens’s Pavilion of Transport at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925 have been an important part of the artist’s formal vocabulary. His recurring use of unlikely elements, among them sections of rusted chain-link fences or suspended metal chains of various thicknesses, freed from their function as demarcation or restraint, create oddly affecting sculptures.
While Martin Boyce’s oeuvre includes shapes drawn both from modernist and classic design sources, it also includes references to everyday urban objects, such as fences, trash bins, or telephone boxes. Transformed by Boyce’s vision of the history of design, these elements, remaining more or less reminiscent of utilitarian objects, create enchanted landscapes that appear as slightly laconic witnesses of past urban development programs but also imbue the formal vocabulary of contemporary urbanism with moments of unexpected tenderness and beauty.
Solo show of Martin Boyce
From May 23rd to July 26th, 2025
The gallery
Esther Schipper founded her first gallery in Cologne in 1989. After German reunification, she opened a satellite space in Berlin in the mid-1990s, ultimately moving its operations there in 1997. The gallery space has since relocated several times within Berlin to accommodate its evolving exhibition program and artists’ needs.
In 2015, Esther Schipper acquired Johnen Galerie and integrated its program under the gallery’s name. Esther Schipper opened a company in Korea in 2017, and a public gallery in Seoul in 2022, as well as a gallery location in Paris on Place Vendôme the same year. In 2024, Esther Schipper started an office and a showroom in New York, with the first presentation scheduled for spring 2025.
Throughout its almost 40 year history, the gallery has supported artists who push boundaries and redefine traditional exhibition formats. Building on the early pioneering program, the gallery specializes in fostering institutional support and finding markets for its artists across continents.
The gallery’s global growth nurtures cross-cultural dialogue and brings new commitments to local and international artistic communities. Its activities extend beyond exhibitions to include lectures, performances, and events, reinforcing its role as a discursive space for experimentation.
Today, Esther Schipper represents a diverse range of international artists, established figures and emerging talents practicing in various media.
Esther Schipper is jointly-owned by its founder, Esther Schipper, and Florian Wojnar, her business partner and husband, who became a shareholder in 2014.
Gallery artists
Rosa Barba, Merikokeb Berhanu, Stefan Bertalan, Norbert Bisky, Julius von Bismarck, Martin Boyce, Matti Braun, AA Bronson, Sarah Buckner, Angela Bulloch, Nathan Carter, Etienne Chambaud, David Claerbout, Thomas Demand, Jean-Pascal Flavien, Ceal Floyer, Simon Fujiwara, Ryan Gander, General Idea, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Andrew Grassie, Grönlund-Nisunen, Martin Honert, Pierre Huyghe, Karolina Jabłońska, Ann Veronica Janssens, Hyunsun Jeon, Christoph Keller, Annette Kelm, Tomasz Kręcicki, Gabriel Kuri, Jac Leirner, Liu Ye, Isa Melsheimer, Prabhavathi Meppayil, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Roman Ondak, Philippe Parreno, Sojourner Truth Parsons, Thomias Radin, Ugo Rondinone, Christopher Roth, Cemile Sahin, Anri Sala, Karin Sander, Julia Scher, Tino Sehgal, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Hito Steyerl, Sun Yitian, Tao Hui, Anicka Yi
