Galatea is a gallery that emerges from the different and complementary trajectories and backgrounds of its founding partners: Antonia Bergamin worked for almost a decade as a managing partner of a major gallery in São Paulo; Conrado Mesquita is an art dealer and collector whose specialty is discovering great works in unlikely places; and Tomás Toledo is a curator who actively contributed to the historic institutional reform of MASP, from which he recently left as chief curator.
With modern and contemporary Brazilian art as its main focus, Galatea works with and sells both well-known names from the national art scene and new talents in contemporary art, while also revisiting historical artists. Such temporal amplitude reflects and articulates the conceptual basis of the gallery’s program: to be a point of support and convergence between different cultures, temporalities, styles, and genres, provoking powerful frictions between the old and the new, the canonical and the non-canonical, the erudite and the informal.
In addition to these connections, the gallery also believes in the relationship between artists, collectors, institutions, and gallery owners. On one hand, there is the dedication to the research process, the respect for creative time, and the support for the professional development of artists with curatorial guidance. On the other, the constant attention and transparency in commercial relations. By strengthening ties, with a sensitive eye for what is important to each one, Galatea praises the relationships that are created around art – because doing so is also praising art itself.
In this sense, the name of the gallery comes precisely from the idea of a relationship, borrowed from the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. This myth tells the story of the artist Pygmalion, who, when sculpting Galatea in ivory, a female figure, falls in love with his own work and begins to adore it. The goddess Aphrodite, moved by such devotion, transforms the statue into a woman of flesh and blood so that the creator and creature can, at last, live a true relationship.
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Antonia Bergamin grew up surrounded by art, learning from an early age the touch, the volume and the power of masterpieces of Brazilian art – such as Lygia Clark's Bichos or Alfredo Volpi's flags and vibrant façades. Daughter of Jones Bergamin, one of the greatest art dealers and collectors in Brazil and director of the traditional Bolsa de Arte auction house, Antonia draws on this legacy to build her own contribution to the Brazilian art market.
With a degree in Business Administration from PUC-Rio, she was a managing partner, between 2012 and 2021, at Bergamin&Gomide gallery, whose focus was on national and international post-war artists. The gallery has quickly come to prominence and has participated in the most important art fairs in Brazil and abroad, such as Art Basel, TEFAF, and FIAC. Among the major exhibitions she has worked on are: Beuys (2016), Tudo joia (2016), Maria Leontina (2017), Mira Schendel: Sarrafos pretos e brancos (2018), and Paulo Roberto Leal (2018).
Antonia Bergamin has been part of ArtRio's committee since 2018, and in 2021 she was on the committee of the Independent Fair, in New York.
Conrado Mesquita has the skill of finding gems where they are least expected. From a very young age, he has built up his collection by following the route of the most unlikely auctions and addresses in Rio de Janeiro, where he has already found pearls by artists such as Lygia Pape, Mira Schendel, Cildo Meireles, Wanda Pimentel, and Lygia Clark, among others. Son of the gallery owner Ronie Mesquita, Conrado grew up being carried by his father to exhibitions, auctions, and art fairs. Thus, he passionately takes forward the lessons about the Brazilian art market which run in the family.
With a degree in Business Administration, he worked for 15 years at Ronie Mesquita Galeria, focused on Brazilian and Latin American art from the second half of the 20th century. The gallery has participated annually in fairs such as SP-Arte and ArtRio, since their first editions. Among the main projects and exhibitions in which Conrado has been involved are Lothar Charoux, Ubi Bava, Raymundo Colares, Paulo Roberto Leal and a solo project in honor of artist Anna Maria Maiolino at The Armory Show in New York, 2018.
Conrado and his family have contributed significantly to the formation of the collection of MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, in dialogue with the curator and friend Paulo Herkenhoff, by donating to the institution about 60 works that form the Fundo Cely, Ronie and Conrado Mesquita. He is, with Camila Yunes, a MASP and MAM Rio patron.
Tomás Toledo cultivated his taste for art from a very young age. As a teenager, he began studying art on his own – getting interested in names like Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Tunga, and Cildo Meireles – and working as an assistant to painter Celso Orsini. Tomás studied Philosophy at PUC-SP with the intention of grounding his curatorial discourse, always having the thought of art on his horizon. Between 2013 and 2014, he participated in the Independent Program of Escola São Paulo, directed by Adriano Pedrosa and co-directed by Ana Paula Cohen.
Initially, his curatorial research addressed discussions around architecture, Brazilian history, and the traumatic reflections of its colonial past in contemporary times. Such problems were articulated in the exhibitions Taipa-tapume (Galeria Leme, São Paulo, 2014) and Empresa colonial, (Caixa Cultural, São Paulo, 2015).
Between 2014 and 2022, Tomás worked at Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand - MASP, for the last four years as chief curator, actively participating in the historic renovation of the institution. At MASP he co-curated important exhibitions such as The Hand of the Brazilian People 1969/2016 (2016); Tunga: the body in works (2017); Miguel Rio Branco: nothing I will take when I die (2017); Emanoel Araujo: the ancestrality of symbols: Africa–Brazil (2018); Afro-Atlantic Histories (MASP and Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, 2018); Lina Bo Bardi: Habitat (MASP, São Paulo and Museo Jumex, Mexico City, 2019); Anna Bella Geiger: Native Brazil/Alien Brazil (MASP, São Paulo, 2019; S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium, 2021); Hélio Oiticica: Dance in My Experience (MASP, 2020 MAM-Rio, 2021); Abdias Nascimento: a panamefrican artist (2022); Alfredo Volpi: between the modern and the popular (2022).
