“When I had just moved to NY I showed with UP&CO gallery (in the late 90s and 2000). UP&CO was also home to the editorial offices of VERY magazine and VERYstyleguide which we all somehow contributed to. A lot of team efforts! At UP&CO I met the most interesting, creative and cool people. Many whom are still my friends today. There was a real artistic community of people “in the know”.” — Mia Enell
In New York of the 90s, Uscha Pohl & Company, short UP&CO, was a forerunner of the cultural cross-over movement combining art, fashion and publishing. Moving from London to New York, Pohl opened her creative hub in a loft in Tribeca, in 1996. UP&CO hosted exhibitions, had its own eponymous fashion label and published VERY magazine and VERYstyleguide (VERY London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro and VERY Fashion). In 1996, one of the first edition projects was the ‘Suburban Genius’ T shirt collection with Jeremy Deller, who created the legendary ‘Überbabe’ T shirt for Uscha Pohl—a nickname that stayed. While Pohl collaborated with artists, her magazine and guides being exhibited as artworks in galleries and museums themselves.
Cees Krijnen and Uscha Pohl met 1998 at the opening- afterparty of “Contemporary Self Portraits” at Sean Kelly Gallery. Krijnen was showing his ‘Kanker’ tea set of Delft porcelain, Pohl was exhibiting the Magazine and had created a special insert section in VERY #4. The bond was formed that evening and their close collaboration is ongoing today, including this issue of TH.EVERYTHING #8, the ‘VERY’ in its title an intended pun relating to Pohl’s magazine.
UP&CO hosted Krijnen’s first solo show in New York, showcasing his ‘Powderpuffmachine’, which won
Krijnen the Prix de Rome in 1999. Pohl’s UP&CO fashion label created the “Divorcee fashion collection” with “divorce battle suits” dressing Krijnen and his mother Greta Blok on her divorce – world tour for the coming years. The “Woman in Divorce Battle on Tour” launched 2000 at UP & CO and the Dutch consulate at the Rockefeller Center. The event kicked off a filming spree for a Dutch film crew and after a year of following the project internationally, the documentary on Krijnen and his seafaring grandfather “Dutch Heroes” (“Hollandse Helden”) aired on national Dutch television. The film won directors Paul Cohen and Martijn van Haalen the Golden Calf award – as well as Dutch public prize – for best short documentary in 2001; subsequently it was screened at both the Toronto and Melbourne film festival.
In 2001 Fashion designer Dirk Schönberger — exhibiting at UP&CO as showroom — became the sponsor of Krijnen’s exhibition “sharing a sponsor, dressing the Albanians,” at the first Tirana bienniale curated by Helena Kontova and Giancarlo Politi of Flashart. Krijnen being invited to Selfridges’(London) Body Craze exhibition in 2003, Uscha Pohl’s VERY advertiser Adel Rootstein, the specialist manufacturer famous for celebrity mannequins, sculpted two figures of Greta Blok as lasting sculptures. For the BIG Torino, the Turin biennale in 2002, Krijnen’s contribution was a Pininfarina Metrocubo placed on the central Turin Square, with atop a mannequin of Greta in Uscha Pohl’s golden leather catsuit.
One of UP&CO’s early collaborative initiatives was with British artist Sarah Staton’s SupaStore NY, which brought British art and ‘Young British Art’ across the Atlantic. A special SupaStore wood cabinet on wheels, a giant steamer trunk was commissioned by UP & CO and built to Staton’s designs. Over a two year period a series of group exhibitions showcased a great selection of UK art in small format & editions; participating artists included Damian Hirst, Fiona Banner, Nicola Tyson, Tracey Emin, Gavin Turk, Stephen Willats, Simon Periton, with artwork stored in the mobile cabinet between the exhibitions.
The group show “OP at UP” in 1998, brainchild of Tom Moody and Mark Dagley, was conceived to coincide with the first Op art exhibition at the MOMA since the 1960s. The success of the exhibition – and subsequent curators’ dinner – spurred a touring exhibition across the United States and creating “Posthypnotic art” as new art genre.
her first solo exhibition “The Cause,” 1998, Danish-American Yvette Brackman recalls “‘The Cause’ is an installation that explores the fight for utopia, revolution and the roots of disaster. This work explores Soviet history and personal memory, specifically my father’s memory of his childhood and experience in the Soviet prison camp system. I use material from nature, fairytales and Russian Constructivism to explore these themes.”
Colombian artist Juan Manuel Echavarria addresses the complex political situation in his home country, which for half a century was haunted by the war between the (right wing) paramilitary groups and the (left wing) revolutionary guerilla gangs. One (the paramilitaries) leaving a more deadly trail of harrowing massacres than the other, both violently decimated the civilian population in their path. Echavarria’s works “Escuela Nueva” (1998) and his video installation “Bolivar’s platter” (1999) both premiered at UP &CO. 1999 saw Uscha Pohl’s collaboration with Anton Kern Gallery for Lara Schnitger’s double-solo exhibition showing in both galleries. In 2003 UP&CO exhibited Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Love Difference, drawing attention – and seeking solutions – to the conflict zone of the shores of the mediterranean sea.
“Now Let Us Praise Famous Mice,” UP&CO, 2002, was Mia Enell’s first solo exhibition in New York. Collaborating on various projects including UP&CO T-shirt editions and VERY magazine editorial contributions, her performance and installation, SHTF in 2008 involved live action with blue paint and rotating fans.
Anneè Olofsson’s solo exhibition in 2002 included her own clothing range made from furnishing material. In 2003 UP & CO exhibited Michelangelo Pistoletto’s project ‘Love Difference’, drawing attention to the political hotspot of the mediterranean sea, seeking to link all shores in a unifying peace process.
Relocating to London in 2004 UP & CO set out anew as “verytrolley” sharing the ex-Modern Art space in Hoxton with Gigi Gigiannuzzi of ‘Trolley Publishing’. A ‘VERY UP & CO editions’ store-in- gallery opened within the artist run gallery Studio 1.1 a few doors down on Redchurch street. Verytrolley showed Mia Enell, “Me and Marcel,” and Cees Krijnen in tandem with Studio 1.1; exhibitions in temporary West London locations included Samantha McEwen, John Alfredo Harris and Sarah Shatz.
Ethics and sustainability having been an underlying theme since UP&CO’s inception, in 2006 the VERYecological styleguides and -maps were launched. In 2014 Pohl released a group of short films in collaboration with Jan Höhe, moderated by Femi Taylor: ‘flood & drought I-IV’ lay bare the human caused reasons for increased floods and extreme droughts — even in the UK, where in 2012 both were occurring simultaneously. The issue has only become more urgent since, there are direct measures we can and need to take to curb the symptoms and help mitigate the climate emergency.
Fastforward to 2023, Düsseldorf: taking on the estate of Erinna König, looking after her oeuvre and transforming her atelier into ‘EK STUDIO,’ Pohl has been showing both work and space in new light.‘Act 3’ (2023) was launched parallel to the Erinna König retrospective at the von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal. ‘Chromatics’ (2024), focused on monochromes from the 80s while presenting König’s film ‘Oskar B. or The Imperialism’ from 1974. “CONSTRUCTION / DECONSTRUCTION”,
Mark Dagley, Jürgen Freund, Erinna König, Peter Schwickerath (2024) – featured NY based artist Mark Dagley alongside his Düsseldorf peers.
The origins of the current exhibition ‘MIRROR IN TIME, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Erinna König’ can be traced back to Krijnen and Pohl’s stay at UNIDEE, Cittadellarte, Biella in 2000. Michelangelo Pistoletto stresses the importance of family, of which there are many kinds, family of mankind, for one. The spring ’26 exhibition S.E.L.F. featuring Erinna König’s photographic work alongside Mia Enell, Cees Krijnen, and Anneè Olofsson brings some of the UP&CO kindred spirits together @ EK STUDIO. —Sahara Meer
