Matthias Arndt: Everything Has Its Time

If, as Gerhard Richter proffers, “art is the highest form of hope”, such hope begins to reveal itself in Cape Schanck, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, where Matthias Arndt’s residence and the Artbarn construction, designed by CHROFI architects, are located. Driving up, you see the soaring Artbarn perched prominent on a hill, its concrete-like render juxtaposed with the vivid red and delightfully quirky Modified Social Bench by Jeppe Hein in the foreground, and his whimsical Modified Street Light #07, twisting in and out of the ground like a slender serpent to the building’s side. It merely piques intrigue as to precisely what’s behind the doors of his abode, which is nestled in the valley below the Artbarn.

Arndt opened his first gallery in east Berlin in 1994, named Arndt & Partner, and it became the first of its kind to show international artists. In a matter of years, Arndt branched out by himself, and by 2009 had 40 employees with six galleries over five countries…