Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/193668
"I think there's room for Wynwood to be elevated to Chelsea. There's so much potential here." —ISABELLE KOWAL says, "so I asked him, 'What if you made them a lot bigger?' And with that I invited him to be the first artist in our program." With Kowal+Odermatt, which Kowal describes as "a work in progress," she plans to reach out to the Miami community and work together on multi-disciplinary projects. "It's too soon to speak about the details," says Kowal, "but I think there's room for Wynwood to be elevated to Chelsea. There's so much potential here." Based between Montreal and Miami, Kowal and Odermatt have deep roots in the Montreal art community where they lend works from their large contemporary art collection—Jean-Michel Othoniel, Anselm Kiefer and Ugo Rondinone, among others—to the Arsenal, an art and event space in both Montreal and Toronto. "That space is about 100 times the size of our space in Wynwood, so there's room to showcase monumental works there," says Kowal. "But there's a lot of public space in Miami that I'd like for us to reach with the artists we're working with. Our format is very flexible, but most importantly this is a platform to connect these international artists to the community here." Following Mastrangelo's show, French artist Davide Balula will be in residence during December, followed by young British artist Oliver Clegg. "When I first began collecting, I spent my first wage when I was 18 years old on an emerging artist. Now, I won't say how many years later, but I'm right back where I started and I couldn't be happier." 70 CULTURED PHOTOS BY MAICOL DIAZ The Kowal+Odermatt Projects space in Wynwood; below, Isabelle Kowal