Can a Farm Help Rethink the Gallery Model?

New York’s Clearing and Venus Over Manhattan both closed last year, while Stephen Friedman Gallery in London shut its doors earlier this year. Even large galleries are reassessing their spaces. Almine Rech closed her former London gallery, put the UK business into voluntary liquidation and reopened in a space about a quarter of its former size. Gagosian exited spaces in London’s Burlington Arcade and Basel.

With costs rising and the market uncertain, dealers are being forced to ask difficult questions. How sustainable is the gallery model, I hear you cry, just days after Frieze wrapped up and as Art Basel Paris gets under way?

Parisian couple Victoire de Pourtalès and Benjamin Eymère think the answer might lie in the soil. On Tuesday 20 October, after a weekend of demonstrations and unrest in Paris, they will open 75.001 LE MARAIS, a new gallery rooted in an idea they have spent six years developing on their farm, 91.530 LE MARAIS, 30 miles south of the capital. The name combines the farm’s postcode, 91530, with le marais, French for ‘marshland’, a nod to the land’s wetland past.

From the Soil to the City

De Pourtalès spent eight years at Thaddaeus Ropac before co-founding VNH Gallery and joining David Zwirner’s Paris space. Eymère, the former CEO of L’Officiel, brings experience in media and brand-building.

Now they’re putting both skill sets to work on an art business that has grown out of the farm. The farm says its agricultural research focuses on hemp and bamboo, with hemp used in textile, cosmetic and construction projects. Artist residencies, exhibitions and research bring artists into contact with the land and the people who work it.

Their new Paris space will test whether this production-led approach can help rethink the economics of running a gallery.

“We don’t think a gallery should just be about putting work on the walls and selling it,” Eymère tells The Art Journal. “It should be about developing ideas, creating projects and building partnerships. My main concern is that people understand exactly what we do. It’s always stressful to come from a farm, open a space in the city, and explain what we do: whether we’re a gallery or whether we produce art shows.”

He wants 75.001 LE MARAIS to be part of a wider creative business, connecting artists with materials, manufacturers and new audiences. “We’re trying to be in between those models because we are a company,” he says, describing their ambition to bridge commercial galleries and nonprofit cultural institutions.

Where Art Takes Root

The farm, a stone’s throw from Château du Marais in Le Val-Saint-Germain, where de Pourtalès grew up, is the gallery’s ground zero. Artists can spend time on the land, explore its materials and meet the people who understand it, from farmers to scientists. The aim is to let the surroundings inform the work itself.

“91.530 LE MARAIS is a farm where art and agriculture converge to explore the possibilities of the living world,” de Pourtalès says. “We bring together artists, scientists and farmers to foster a dialogue aimed at inventing new narratives, new actions and perhaps even new worlds.”

One example is the couple’s work with French textile artist Marie Hazard, whose practice incorporates raw fibres, including hemp grown on the farm, according to the couple. A 2026 presentation at La Monnaie de Paris, as part of Asia NOW, brings Hazard’s textiles into dialogue with work by Japanese ceramic artist Kazunori Hamana.

Hamana lives and works in Chiba Prefecture, where he is an organic rice farmer, fisherman and artist. His ceramics draw on traditional Japanese forms. A further presentation is planned for Luxembourg Art Week, where a Soil Café conceived by Hazard will host a conversation about the artist’s relationship to the farm, the museum and the fair.

Each presentation gives the work a different context and audience. Eymère and de Pourtalès help fund production, provide materials and connect the artist with partners who can help realise the project.

De Pourtalès says building those relationships takes time. “We bring people together, we organise talks, and we present the work,” she tells me. Their exhibitions often travel to foundations and institutions, with the couple introducing artists to curators and museum teams.

Photo: Vlada Bezel, courtesy of Victoire de Pourtalès and Benjamin Eymère

A Gallery in Paris

The inaugural exhibition at 75.001 LE MARAIS brings together Olivier Mosset – the Swiss artist associated with the radical BMPT movement of the 1960s – and Marc Leschelier.

Mosset will show metallic monochromes first presented on the rooftop of Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille in 2018. Their colour-shifting paint responds to changes in light.

Leschelier, an architect and sculptor, will create what he calls ‘pre-architectures’: sculptural constructions using materials and techniques associated with building.

The gallery itself will be left bare, with artists deciding its walls, volumes and layout for each exhibition. It sits near major cultural institutions, including the Bourse de Commerce and the Louvre, in a neighbourhood better known for museums and foundations. Eymère sees an opportunity to establish a commercial gallery in the area. The space will also serve as an office, meeting place and venue for conferences and corporate projects.

Putting a Value on Soil

The couple co-founded Soilonic with model and environmental advocate Arizona Muse. The venture is developing $SOILO, a digital token that Soilonic says is intended to be redeemable for a kilogram of soil. At the time of writing, the company had said the token was due to launch publicly on 16 November; its proposed redemption mechanism had yet to be tested.

At Asia NOW in 2025, 91.530 LE MARAIS presented a project exploring soil, fibres and currency with support from Soilonic. Eymère says the partners are now developing a scheme that would let artworks be priced in euros or kilograms of soil, with Soilonic providing an alternative means of payment.

The idea, he says, is to assign soil an economic value and link the art trade to the regenerative farming practices underpinning the couple’s wider business.

An Ecology-Based Business Model

The business will draw on artwork sales, collaborations with brands and manufacturers, material research and the wider community the couple have built around the farm. They want these activities to support one another, with sales helping to finance the agricultural work and partnerships creating opportunities for artists.

The financial model is still developing. The article offers no figures for the costs or income of each activity, so it is not yet possible to assess whether sales will sustain the agricultural work, or how much the farm contributes to the gallery.

De Pourtalès believes ecology must shape how the business operates. “We believe that 91.530 LE MARAIS and 75.001 LE MARAIS can no longer simply treat ecology as a theme; it must embody it through its rhythms, its practices, and its ways of thinking.”

She describes their approach as a form of permaculture, connecting exhibitions, agricultural research, residencies and local collaborations. Whether those strands can support one another and sustain a commercial gallery remains to be seen.