Galerie Tanit is a contemporary art gallery established in Munich in 1972 by Naila Kettaneh-Kunigk and Stefan Kunigk to be later joined by Walther Mollier as of 1981.
The gallery, now present in both Munich, Germany and Beirut, Lebanon, has worked with emerging artists as well as established artists. From introducing local art to the international scene and vice versa, Galerie Tanit has presented itself as a daring art gallery with a unique approach towards artists and the arts.
For over forty years Galerie Tanit has played an important role in introducing American artists to German audiences and beyond. Galerie Tanit was founded by Naila Kettaneh-Kunigk and Stefan Kunigk in Munich in 1972. Walther Mollier became partner in 1981. After several moves, the Munich exhibition space found a home at Maximilanstrasse 45. Initial solo shows included Robert Rauschenberg (1975), Michael Heizer (1976) and Jasper Johns (1977). Early photography shows featured Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Industrial Buildings (1977) and Hamish Fulton’s Roads and Paths (1979).
The program of the 1980s and early 1990s focused on showing artists from the minimal, conceptual, and arte povera movements: Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Robert Mangold, Carl André, Robert Ryman, Brice Marden, John McCracken, Giovanni Anselmo, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gerhard Merz, John M. Armleder, Olivier Mosset, Hamish Fulton and Urs Lüthi. Thomas Demand and Sylvie Fleury, then new-comers on the international art scene, were also represented (first shows in 1992 and 1993, respectively).
After 2002, the program of the gallery gradually shifted to a younger generation of artists and introduced international artist like Jeremy Blake and Michael Lin to local audiences. The roster of the gallery was extended to include Adrian Schiess, Martin Assig, Julia Mangold, Catharina van Eetvelde and Xavier Noiret Thomé.
The 2004 show Present. Absence – Contemporary Art from Lebanon indicated a new area of concentration which culminated in the opening of an exhibition space in Beirut, Lebanon, and a series of exhibitions that explored contemporary art from the Middle East.
An additional exhibition space in Cologne opened in 1989 with an extensive show of Dan Flavin. A temporary experimental space opened in Brussels in 1996 under the name “Windows” in collaboration with Bernier Eliades Gallery, Athens. The opening of the new exhibition space “Espace Kettaneh-Kunigk” in Beirut in 2007 followed. Since 2012, the Beirut space is located on the ground floor of the East Village building on Armenia Street in the Mar Mikhael area where it has kept its tradition of presenting local and international artists to the public. On August 4, 2020, the space was destroyed in the Beirut port explosion which devastated the city. The gallery has since reopened its space on June 19, 2021 while maintaining the usual program from an hors-les-murs space in Starco for the entirety of 2021.
In Munich, Galerie Tanit left Maximilanstrasse 45 after 50 years to a new space in Reisingerstrasse, thus continuing to be present in the German city.
Galerie Tanit is now working on international collaborations throughout Europe and the Middle East in an effort to introduce its artists to international audiences who have shown great interest in works by artists from the region and vice versa.
A joint project with the Veronan gallery, Studio La Citta launched the series of collaborations in June 2021 with a collective exhibition titled I AM ONE ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT and was followed by two exhibitions at Cromwell Place, London with many more on the horizon.
“En changeant notre identité visuelle la galerie Tanit de Munich et Beyrouth a voulu faire évoluer son image.
Entourée de très jeunes collaborateurs Naila kettaneh-Kunigk développe un discours visuel plus jeune et plus agressif. N’oublions pas le Covid qui a transformé les relations interpersonnelles.
Aujourd’hui nous sommes très fiers de rajouter à nos artistes des positions plus jeunes et désirons transmettre ceci à notre public.
A Munich nous avons un nouvel espace qui sera un écrin pour des projets spécifiques ; à Beyrouth nous continuerons à progresser avec des expositions personnelles et de groupe ; ceci malgré la dévastation de l’économie et des finances de ce pays. La culture sous toutes ses formes nous permettra de surmonter ces écueils.”