Pauline Foessel, SK 2011 interviewed by The Art Gorgeous website

A native of Grenoble, France, Pauline Foessel (b. 1987) moved to Lisbon in 2013 to manage Alexandre Farto's Vhils Studio and Underdogs Gallery. With a master's degree in Management Entrepreunarial from SKEMA Business School in Lille and an MBA Exchange Program from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, she worked as gallery assistant at Galerie Magda Danysz in Paris and gallery manager at Magda Danysz Gallery in Shanghai, China. Since 2013, together with Alexandre Farto, she has performed the function of co-director of Underdogs Gallery, where she is responsible for the curatorship of exhibitions, events, public art projects and artist editions. Driven by a great passion for art from an early age, Pauline Foessel manages an innovative and ambitious artistic programme which has been able to place Lisbon on the global map of urban-inspired contemporary art, injecting cultural value into its architectural heritage and public space, and promoting the work of a generation of artists who take the urban environment as a backdrop. Between 2015 and 2017 she divided her time between Lisbon and Hong Kong, where she worked as Director of Development at Hong Kong Contemporary Art (HOCA) Foundation, a non-profit established with the goal of promoting and developing awareness of contemporary art in the Asian art hub. In 2017 she also founded the contemporary art project We Don't Do Flowers, where she applies her international multidisciplinary knowledge of various fields and cultural landscapes to the global art world.

2. Did you have any mentors you learned a lot from?
Of course, Magda Danysz, a French gallerist who has her gallery in Paris and Shanghai.

3. What was your first job?
It was for Magda, after my internship she hired me for her Shanghai Gallery. I’ve worked in total 2,5 years there I was her gallery manager at 22! I opened the space there on the Bund, finished my studies and came back to move the space to a wonderful gallery in Huangpu district. Since then, she moves to Beijing Road!

4. Did you experience a lot of competitiveness in your career path?
Not really, I always went on my own path, doing the thing I wanted to. I left when I felt it was the moment and took all the opportunities I had.
Now I realise how lucky I was to take all these paths that are so complementary with what I am doing today!

5. Did you always like to work in the art world and why?
Always, I remember the first time I walk into the gallery of Magda for my internship (I was 20) I understood right away that’s what I wanted to do.
I did a business school, I was studying marketing, finance etc. and always looked for something more meaningful. I remember a talk I had with my mom over the phone. I was telling her how I didn’t wanted to work for L’Oreal to sale shampoo (nothing against no one there, just not what I wanted to do!!) and she told me, Pauline, I am sure you can find something in the arts, you always loved it. And this is where I looked for my first internship!

6. Do you feel the art world is undergoing lots of changes these days?
Tremendously, and the internet is the reason. The role of all the actors of the art world are changing, artists can communicate by themselves and stronger than their galleries ever did, galleries have to adapt to a more and more international market, collectors can contact artists, open private museums, communicate.
Each actors have to find again their place and space.

7. Where do you see yourself in the coming 5 years?
I see myself in Lisbon, with my start up being successful ! Will try to bring one more tool to the art world online.

8. Best career advice you received?
Do it. If you feel it’s the thing to do.

9. Your words of wisdom for young women?
Dare, trust all your ideas and move ahead.

Source : https://www.theartgorgeous.com/