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| Photo credit: Sandra Larochelle Courtesy of Leila Greiche and L'INCONNUE |
Leila Greiche and I already knew each other before the editorial team suggested I interview her. Nonetheless, I was excited to be given the opportunity to draw the portrait of the savvy gallery owner behind the charming and joyful woman I call a friend. Leila had proposed to meet for lunch at Manitoba, a unique restaurant in Montreal in that specializes in First Nation’s cuisine. I find her seated in the garden area dressed in a dazzling bright pink suit with impeccable hair and make up. She waves at me and I discover Truffles at her feet, her two-year-old Brussels Griffon. She has already ordered a bottle of Kombucha: “Let’s share!” she offers enthusiastically. In that moment, I realize how this first interaction already encapsulates who I know Leila Greiche to be: a sophisticated independent woman of good taste with considerate and caring manners.
She begins to tell me about her homecoming three years ago after nearly a decade abroad: in New York first, then London. She had noticed that some of the Canadian artists she had come to follow were relatively unknown, rarely shown and certainly not collected in Canada. She initially opened the gallery in 2016 as a response to this realization. Around the same time, a number of other young spaces with similar mandates started pop up, bringing a breath of fresh air to what can sometimes feel like a reclusive Canadian art market. When asked how the name L’INCONNUE came about, she revealed that it was inspired by the story of l’inconnue de la seine, a woman who drowned in the French capital’s river in the beginning of the 20thcentury and whose face was plastered and reproduced industrially. “Her face became used as a CPR dummy, as a drawing model and was on many images and objects that found their way in people’s homes. Albert Camus called her the drowned Mona Lisa.” She liked the paradox: being unknown yet incredibly visible at the same time.
Eventually, she opened up her programming to international names. Leila is not someone who blindly follows a formula: she wants to be excited about what she does. Millennial Feminisms opened in the spring of 2017 and from there she continued to exhibit international artists alongside Canadian ones. Yet, she has been incredibly cautious in developing a roster, fully aware that the traditional gallery model does not suit her. Still today, she admits that she doesn’t have a list of artists on her website because she cultivates a roster behind the scenes that she is not in a rush to make public: “[the list of artists] is growing and evolving alongside the gallery. I want to move at a steady pace and work with artists in a deep way.”
Her approach is equal part intuitive and practical. She’s someone who is obviously educated and incredibly attuned to the international art scene. She’s interested in artists working with sustainable materials and who have a relevant practice to the world as she observes it. One of the advantages of her business model is that she can respond to current international discourses in an immediate way. “I’ve come to realize that I have a very curatorial focus” she says “but of course planning short term has its disadvantages!”
I call her an art dealer, but quickly correct myself: “you’re not an art dealer, really, you're a gallery owner and there’s a difference.” She agrees: “Yes it’s about cultivating relationships, trust and loyalty,” she tells me. Older white men have dominated the art market in Canada and her model is distinct from theirs. “For me, it’s about developing a different power structure that allows for more flexibility. I want to cultivate relationships with artists, institutions and collectors. But [having a different structural model] has created a situation where it has taken more time for the people who support the local scene to reveal themselves to me. But maybe they’re not my scene!” she laughs. But, it doesn’t seem that her hard work goes unnoticed. She has been concluding sales with large national collections and placed her artists in exhibitions at various important North American museums. Curators of important local institutions regularly visit her space and upon talking to colleagues and friends, everyone seems to be aware of her gallery and program.
Still, she finds it hard to cater to both an international and a local audience. Gradually, the mandate of the gallery has become to find a balance between a program of exhibitions that is ground locally but cultivates an international perspective. As a millennial, she understands how instagram constitutes a power tool in nurturing an international following: “every important media outlet has an instagram account and it becomes a connecting point” she explains, “so, instagram is not to sell as much as a point of engagement and a promotional tool that allows me to be transparent and reach an international audience.” This is how she has been able to secure regular coverage by media outlets such as Daily Lazy, Art Viewer , CURA, Artforum, etc.
I take this opportunity to discuss the podcast she recently launched, an initiative that I applaud as it constitutes an exception on the Canadian circuit. “I’m an avid podcast listener!” she reveals. She is working with artists who live in different cities than hers and the podcast is a tool that allows her to share conversations that would normally happen over a studio visit. “There’s just so much you can convey through an exhibition text” she remarks “and the podcast becomes an engagement tool to go beyond text and share the spontaneous conversations that happen with the artists.” Being a new model, however, she admits that some artists are still reluctant to embrace it. This is why it has become important for her to work with artists who are confident and eloquent in talking about their work. “I might get some criticism for it” she concedes, “but I prefer working with artists who have completed an MFA or at least have an equivalent experience because they tend to be capable of situating their practice within international discourses.”
Dessert is served, and it’s time to conclude the interview. I ask her what lies ahead. She admits she has got an eye on Europe: “I’d like to develop more relationships [there].” As per a more general hope, she would like to see a more transparent way of operating in the art scene. “I’ve been learning mostly through trial and error because there’s no transparency. Everyone is trying to figure it out on their own. If there was more transparency, it would be a win-win situation across the board, we could have a better online sales community for example.” Most millennial businesses are evolving online and L’INCONNUE is no exception. Yet, she deplores the fact that an online art market platform that artists and curators respect and that serious collectors go to still does not exist: “that’s something that needs to change but one that needs to be done in a thoughtful way.” She concludes: “Art could be part of the mainstream economy, rather than being this elitist bubble that can only sustain itself for so long and that is causing so many near-crashes. We’re seeing many galleries come and go.” But her future looks bright. She has got a thinking-outside-the-box mentality that has been the driving force of her business and I doubt we’re done hearing about Leila Greiche.
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| Photo credit: Sandra Larochelle Courtesy of Leila Greiche and L'INCONNUE |
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| Anaïs Castro (left) and Leila Greiche (right) in front of an artwork by Olga Abeleva, beside a work by Luanne Martineau Photo credit: Sandra Larochelle Courtesy of Leila Greiche and L'INCONNUE |
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| Leila Greiche (left) and Anaïs Castro (right) in front of an artwork by Anne Low Photo credit: Sandra Larochelle Courtesy of Leila Greiche and L'INCONNUE |
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| Anaïs Castro (left) and Leila Greiche (right) in front of an artwork by Luanne Martineau Photo credit: Sandra Larochelle Courtesy of Leila Greiche and L'INCONNUE |