Building something that lasts; Interview with Super Super Markt

Julius Jacobi & Rory Kirk-Duncan, Co-Founders & Directors Super Super Markt, Courtesy of Albrecht Fuchs and Super Super Markt, Berlin

Interview with Julius Jacobi & Rory Kirk-Duncan from Super Super Markt
By Tula Plumi

TP: Hi Julius and Rory. The show looks fantastic. I am very familiar with Piotr Bury Łakomy’s work from seeing it online, and this is actually the first time to finally see it in person at the gallery. How did you discover his work and what made you want to exhibit it?

JJ & RKD: Thanks for your kind words! We each came to Piotr’s work separately. Julius first saw it in a group show at BRAUNSFELDER in Cologne, curated by Fabian Schöneich, and Rory discovered it a little later in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, during our Premium member trip to the city last year. We realised that we’d both been struck by the same thing: the artist’s material language. That tension between the industrial and the organic, and his ongoing use of the human figure and anthropometric proportion as a quiet organising principle, felt like the kind of practice we want to give a platform to. Zjawa w Ogrodzie (A Phantom in the Garden) is his first exhibition with the gallery and we couldn’t be more happy with how the show looks and feels.

Piotr Bury Łakomy, Zjawa w Ogrodzie, 2026, Super Super Markt, Courtesy of the artist & Super Super Markt, Berlin

TP: I’m curious – is there a particular work in the show that’s your favorite, or that drew you in the most?

RKD: For me, it would have to be Moonlight (zjawa) (2026) as it’s from the same series that I saw in the museum in Warsaw. There’s something spectral about it that captures the show’s title outright, a phantom presence caught in the honeycomb surface, shifting as you move around it rather than sitting still to be looked at. It rewards slow looking, which is really what the whole show asks of you.

JJ: For me it’s Bastard Garden (2026). The work has been in development since 2024: It’s where a lot of elements of Piotr’s practice, the unpainted, raw honeycomb structure and the more recent painterly surfaces, actually meet on a single object rather than sitting in separate bodies of work. For years, his sculptures let the material speak for itself, cut, folded, left bare. Over the last few years painting has crept in, first tentatively, now as an equal partner to the structure. Bastard Garden is the piece where you can watch that shift happen in real time, half unpainted skeleton, half painted skin, which is why it feels like the key to the whole show for me.

Piotr Bury Łakomy, Zjawa w Ogrodzie, 2026, Super Super Markt, Courtesy of the artist & Super Super Markt, Berlin

TP: I was recently talking with a friend about the importance of strengthening art communities and I actually used your gallery as an example. You balance the traditional gallery model – artist representation, art fairs, etc. – with a parallel approach focused on building a community of art lovers and collectors through memberships. I’d love to hear more about that decision. What led you to work between these two models?

JJ & RKD: Community was never a layer that we added onto the gallery, it was the starting point for us. Super Super Markt began as a nomadic exhibition project moving through temporary spaces, including a Späti, a deli, and a collector’s home, long before we had a permanent gallery. That period taught us that the community and the exhibition programme aren’t separate, they’re the same project seen from two angles. We opened our permanent space on Brunnenstrasse in 2024 because it provided a foundation for our platform, planning exhibitions with longevity, representing artists, publishing catalogues, participating in fairs, while keeping the membership model in place at the same time. The thinking is simple: the traditional gallery structure is so valuable in supporting artists’ careers over the long term, but it can be quite closed off to people who are new to collecting or simply curious. Membership is our way of keeping a door open for them, for a new generation, so the two models feed each other rather than compete.

TP: For someone considering a membership – what do you offer? I know you organize visits to artists’ studios and art collections, too. Would you share more about that? It sounds like a very inclusive approach that invites people from different backgrounds.

JJ & RKD: The membership is €75 a year, and every member receives our Supergabe, a limited edition that we produce annually, so you start collecting from day one. Beyond that, members get access to studio visits, tours of collections and institutions, and community events where you can meet other collectors at very different stages of their journey, from someone buying their first piece to more seasoned ones. We built it this way deliberately: you don’t need capital or years of art-world fluency to be part of it, just curiosity.

TP: You also organize projects outside of the gallery, such as Luz Carabaño: resonancias, which took place in a private residence in Hydra, Greece, last June. How did Luz’s work blend with the atmosphere of the island of Hydra? Also, what was it like to exhibit there alongside DESTE’s show and other projects, like the Hydra School Projects, for example?

JJ & RKD: Luz’s practice starts from a close observation of our lived reality, things like light, water, worn stone, which she then distills into small, intimate abstractions – motifs that the island has in abundance. Installing her work in a private house rather than a white cube meant visitors encountered it the way you might encounter a painting in a friend’s home, up close, without ceremony, which suits how small and quietly demanding these paintings are.

DESTE has been realizing shows in the old slaughterhouse since 2009, and the Hydra School Projects have been presenting emerging Greek and international artists at the old high school since 2000, so there’s a real density of serious programming concentrated on a small island for a short window each summer. It creates an audience of people who are there specifically to look closely at art, and being part of that energy.

Luz Carabaño, resonancias, Super Super Markt, Hydra, 2026, Courtesy of the artist & Super Super Markt, Berlin

TP: Congratulations on being shortlisted for this year’s VBKI Prize for Berlin Galleries! You absolutely deserve it and I wish you every success. Since establishing your gallery in Berlin in 2024, you have presented a diverse programme of gallery exhibitions, offsite projects and community-building initiatives. What are your future plans, and what projects or ideas would you like to work on?

JJ & RKD: Thank you, that means a lot! The shortlist feels like recognition of something we believe strongly in: that a young gallery can build serious artistic credibility and a genuine community at the same time, each one strengthening the other rather than serving it. Looking ahead, we want to keep expanding our offsite programme, Hydra won’t be a one-off, and we’re constantly looking at places where an exhibition can be shaped by its surroundings rather than imposed on a neutral space. We’re also keen to further develop the community side of our membership, and to keep giving our artists a platform to develop ambitious new projects. Above all, we’re trying to think in decades rather than months. Patience has turned out to be the most underrated ingredient in building something that lasts.

Tags: Julius Jacobi, Luz Carabaño, Piotr Bury Łakomy, Rory Kirk-Duncan, Super Super Markt, Tula Plumi

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