I would describe Joan Robledo-Palop as half science and half soul. In 2016, the Spanish-born art dealer transitioned from the world of art research and academia into the world of private art sales.
His company Zeit Contemporary Art is headquartered slightly off the beaten path in Midtown Manhattan. From a certain perspective it might seem like any other ordinary art gallery - it hosts exhibitions and rents booths at art fairs with the express purpose of selling art. What sets it apart is the culture Robledo-Palop and his team are striving to create. Zeit proposes that the real wealth generated by the collecting of art is not financial: it's cultural.
"The art market is just a very small part of what we call art," Robledo-Palop says.
The gallery's current online exhibition is a case in point. Titled Painting Abstraction: 197X-Today, the curation spotlights an unexpected pairing of abstract painters (as is typical for the gallery), which is extraordinarily diverse in terms of nationality, race, gender, age, and aesthetic approach.
