The first show by an invited curator at Galería Fermay
Ken Pratt and Antoni Ferrer Mayol have a long shared curatorial and creative production history of collaboration worthy of any of the tales an imagined old sea salt might tell in this exhibition.
It's a true story that has seen them deliver a virtually impossible intervention at the Wallace Collection in London featuring the work of artists Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen and the fashion creations of Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos; a story that rocked up in Slovenia in between creating alternative art fairs in a boutique hotel in Brussels ("Hey, kids, let's put on a show!") or consolidating the buzz surrounding the Dutch embassy's pioneering cultural pop-up space in London.
It's a story that has literally seen Toni sent up a mountain in Peru to manage a photoshoot and Ken churning out a glossy magazine particularly vaunted for its art content, the first magazine to ever officially undertake a collaboration with the Frieze Foundation, turning its pages into a platform for a unique art work created by a Danish artist co-operative commissioned by the foundation.
So, it's natural—inevitable maybe, even—that Ken is the curator that Toni has invited to pull together Galería Fermay's first externally curated project, the exhibition True North.
Installation view; Arocha + Schraenen 'Circa Tabac' intervention at The Wallace Collection, London (2011)
The Collaboration
Yeah, we'll try to make it not too "bromance"...
Antoni Ferrer Mayol
Director of Galería Fermay, Toni completed his postgraduate studies in the UK before working internationally as a curator, creative and producer in England, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, Brazil, Peru, Spain and the USA, among other locations.
His experience also includes production for large international companies in the fields of travel and culture.
His collaborations with Ken Pratt have included more familiar curatorial practice with exhibition formats, but also the more experimental, whether mounting a challenging "intervention" at the Wallace Collection, London, or initiating an hotel art fair in Brussels.
He returned to Mallorca taking up a role as director of the vaunted Galería Maior, gaining critical recognition for artists he showcased first in the Balearics—such as Arocha + Schraenen—before opening his own gallery.
When he lived in Kentish Town, he knew exactly where to find the best steaks in London.
Ken Pratt
Curator, writer and creative, Ken Pratt's practice spans commercial and institutional realms. Whether creating projects for the Whitechapel Gallery, London (together with Ian White), developing an innovative training programme for young curators in Rotterdam, curating projects in European museums or editing a vaunted directional glossy fashion and culture magazine, his approach to art is seldom orthodox. There is a reason the module he taught at Leeds University (at the invitation of Professor Vanalyne Green) was titled "The Feral Curator".
He has been as equally at home DJ'ing in Berlin or collaborating on a script for a TV series as he is in a gallery. Mostly recently, as a writer, he contributed texts for publications for the two iterations of the show on the Baroque curated by Luc Tuymans at M HKA, Antwerp and Fondazione Prada, Milan.
During the pandemic lockdown, he decided, "cooking is the new curation" and launched a food blog, The Hobby Chef Bloke.
