MARTINA TAUBER. Independent art advisor, curator and exhibition maker.
For more than two decades, Martina Tauber has worked at the intersection of contemporary art, collecting, architecture and curatorial practice. Based between Germany and Mallorca and working internationally, she advises private collectors, develops art concepts for residences and architectural projects, and curates exhibitions and collaborations with artists, galleries and institutions. Her approach to art has always been personal. Rather than beginning with the market, a name or a trend, Martina begins with the work itself: its presence, its relevance, the ideas behind it and the question of whether it has the capacity to remain compelling over time. This perspective is rooted in her background in museology and art history and in many years spent working in leading art galleries and directly with artists. For Martina, understanding art means understanding where it comes from — the artist’s practice, the development of the work, its historical and contemporary context and, not least, the conversations that surround its creation. Studio visits have therefore always been an essential part of her work. They allow for something that cannot be found in price databases, auction results or digital viewing rooms: direct access to the thinking and process behind the work.
FROM CURATING TO COLLECTING
Martina studied Museology and Art History in Berlin and Munich and began her professional career in the late 1990s. Since then, her work has taken her through different areas of the international art world — from museums and exhibitions to teaching, galleries, independent curatorial projects and private art advisory. For one year, she taught Exhibition Organization at Universidad de los Andes, bringing curatorial thinking and the practical experience of exhibition-making into an academic context. Over the years, working closely with artists became one of the defining elements of her practice. Curating exhibitions taught her to look beyond individual works and consider the relationships between them: how different artistic positions communicate, how a space changes the perception of a work, and how a selection of individual pieces can gradually develop into a larger narrative. The same thinking informs her work with private collections today. A collection, in Martina’s view, is more than the sum of its acquisitions. At its best, it develops a character of its own. It reveals interests, contradictions, discoveries and changes of perspective. It can be rigorous without becoming predictable and personal without losing artistic relevance. This is where curatorial thinking and art advisory meet.
AN INDEPENDENT PERSPECTIVE
Independence is fundamental to Martina’s way of working. Unlike a gallery, she is not committed to representing a fixed roster of artists. This allows her to look across galleries, generations, media and markets and to recommend what she believes is right for a particular collector, collection or project. Her international network has grown organically over more than twenty years through relationships with artists, galleries, curators, institutions, architects, designers and specialists. These relationships provide access, but access alone is not the point. What matters is knowing where to look, what questions to ask and when something deserves attention. Martina follows both established and emerging artistic positions and is particularly interested in artists whose work has a distinctive visual language and the potential to develop over time. Market information forms part of her assessment, but never replaces artistic judgement. For her, a successful acquisition has to work on several levels: intellectually, emotionally, within the context of a collection and, where relevant, from a long-term market perspective.
ART, SPACE AND THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE WITH IT
Martina’s work has increasingly brought contemporary art into dialogue with architecture and interior spaces. She develops art concepts for private residences and other architectural environments, frequently collaborating with architects, interior designers and other creative disciplines. Yet she deliberately distinguishes her work from decoration. Art does not need to match the sofa. A powerful work can create tension, change the rhythm of a room, challenge its architecture or become the element around which everything else begins to make sense. Sometimes the right work is precisely the one that was not expected. Finding those relationships requires sensitivity to space, but also the confidence to allow art to maintain its independence. This is particularly important in private residences. Art there is not experienced for the duration of an exhibition. It becomes part of everyday life. A collector may live with a work for decades. That changes the question from Does it look good here? to something much more interesting: Will I still want to look at it years from now?
CURIOSITY AS A METHOD
Despite decades of experience, Martina considers curiosity one of the most important tools in her work. The art world continually changes. New generations of artists emerge, established positions are reconsidered, markets shift and ideas move between disciplines and cultures. Remaining open to those changes while retaining one’s own judgement is essential. This curiosity also shapes the way Martina works with collectors. She does not believe that an advisor’s role is simply to confirm what a client already knows or likes. Good advisory should occasionally open an unexpected door — introducing an artist, medium or idea that initially sits outside familiar territory. Some of the most important works in a collection can begin with exactly that moment of uncertainty. The process is therefore a dialogue. Martina brings research, experience, access and a trained eye. The collector brings intuition, personality and their own history. Over time, those perspectives meet and a collection develops its individual language.
MARTINA TAUBER FINE ART ADVISORY
Today, through Martina Tauber Fine Art Advisory, Martina works primarily with private collectors while also developing curatorial exhibitions, art concepts and selected collaborations internationally. Her work connects the different worlds she has inhabited throughout her career: the artist’s studio and the collector’s home, the exhibition space and the art market, intuition and research, established positions and new discoveries. What connects all of them is a belief that art should never become merely another commodity or finishing touch. It should provoke curiosity. It should create conversation. It should sometimes surprise. And above all, it should matter to the person who chooses to live with it.