Mariane Ibrahim

So you learn it with your interaction with the collectors.

You're learning with your interaction with artists or institutions, but never with the interaction that you have with the galleries, because there's always this opacity in that world that, you know, you can't just say, is that OK?

We do this.

So I'm not comfortable doing this.

And there's a cultural aspect that has been going on as being French.

As you probably know, the French, we always say no to everything.

So I think the no's have saved me more than the yes, because the only thing that I did not want is to lose any form of integrity and to not compromise and to not sort of be subject to other people's decisions for what I believe.

I welcome any advice, but I've never done anything that was forced.

I mean, I've never had a forceful interaction with that sort of a medium.

And if it's not for me, it's not for me.

And I walk away.

that probably has kept me a little sane and alive to have not engaged with people or situation that I was not comfortable with and put the artist very much first.

And the fact is, I know a lot of the galleries have a system of liaison, but I don't have very much of that system of liaison.

I'm actually the artist liaison and I,

enjoy engaging with the artists.

I know my time sometimes is a little more limiting, but as galleries, we have to remember why we had these artists in the first place.

And to put degrees of separations, it's not, you know, very productive.

It's not a companionship.

So, you know, as much as possible, visiting the artists, interacting,

spending time with them, even sometimes go on holidays with them.