It all started in 2018 with the opening of Gallery Red . Today, with a dozen art spaces open to the public and another eight more private ones, it can be rightly said that the American Drew Aaron is a key name in the creation of the new Soho in Palma.
At 44 years old, Drew is considered one of the greatest collectors of art under 50 and is behind this project that has completely transformed Plaça Frederic Chopin, and where he is greeted friendly in the neighboring galleries and restaurants he frequents. daily.
His private office impresses as soon as you enter. On its walls hang the works of the best-known artists, such as Damien Hirst, Christopher Wool, Andy Warhol Y David LaChapelle . There is no room that does not have a large piece, from the most remote office, to the bathrooms.
Drew Aaron, creator of Gallery Red.
The meeting room is presided over by a large Basquiat 1983. In front of this work, Drew explains that his passion for art was born from a very young age, but his education in it came separately. having houses in New York, Greenwich and the Hamptons he was lucky to have neighbors like the Brant family and the Mugrabi family, two of the world's biggest collectors and art dealers. He learned a lot from them and they gave him all kinds of advice. The most important one he remembers is this: "If you're going to invest, it's better to have one great piece by Basquiat or Warhol than ten of his drawings or lithographs."
The businessman followed his recommendations to the letter. His family was not dedicated to art, they had a paper recycling company in Philadelphia, which under his leadership, managed to invoice more than 1,000 million dollars a year before moving to Mallorca, when the company strategically associated with the Asian conglomerate, Konica Minolta. He worked in India, Brazil, Turkey and North America, with all the most relevant newspapers and magazines, and doing good business, little by little, he started his own art collection.
IT ALL STARTED WITH A WARHOL
The first painting he acquired was in 2006, one of Warhol's Campbell's soup cans that hung from his luxurious 400-square-meter penthouse in the Trump World Tower in New York, where he lived with his wife, the Czech top model. Hana Soukupova. The couple lived a hectic life traveling to all corners of the world for work: he to sell paper and she to parade through the best catwalks. With more than one hundred starring covers, it became one of the victorias secret angels.
Gallery Red was born in 2018.
When his first child, Flinn, was born, they decided to seek a more leisurely life, and after ruling out California (too close) and Australia (too far), they chose Mallorca as an intermediate point. A few years earlier they had discovered the island after being invited to Pollenca to a good friend's birthday. They fell in love with this corner of the Mediterranean which they began to visit every year as part of a summer tradition.
Her location as a new residence allowed Hana to visit her family in Prague and continue to travel to Europe's fashion capitals to work as a model. After searching for their ideal home on the internet, they fell in love with a possessió in Alaró, in the Serra de Tramuntana . A rustic finca with a large field plot, perfect for rescuing animals and ideal for raising your child.
During the investigation process in Mallorca, he met the former director of Banco Santander in Palma, who made it easier for him to make purchase transactions, becoming his trusted person on the island, to such an extent that Drew proposed to open a company together , leaving behind his paper empire.
In 2016 they founded Liongate Capital, on which their other businesses depend: a mortgage broker that offers mortgages and financial intermediation for the acquisition of luxury houses and contemporary art in the Balearic Islands and in the south of Spain.
Interior of Gallery Red in Palma.
A few years later, Drew was introduced to the art world. Although he had no experience running a gallery, he had the idea of bringing the most cutting-edge artists to the island, like Warhol, Basquiat, Richter, Jeff Koons , and other great contemporary art, difficult to find outside the great galleries of London, Berlin or New York.
THE LANDING IN MALLORCA
The opening of the first Gallery Red space in 2018 caused great expectation in Palma and many onlookers went to the gallery to take photos. For weeks, the activity did not stop, but the visits did not turn into sales, because, as the collector reflected after this experience, "people come to Mallorca for its beaches and its culture, on vacation, but who traveled here to buy a piece of art”?
Drew realized that he could use great artists as a pole of attraction to his galleries, combining the exhibition space with something else. That's how he started represent emerging artists who could be “the next Basquiat or Picasso”, like the Mallorcan Elena Gual, with whom he has sealed a exclusive collaboration Worldwide.
Plaça Frederic Chopin in Palma is already known as the Red Gallery Square.
In Palma's Plaça Frederic Chopin itself, it opened an exhibition hall and a three-storey Concept Store where all kinds of products can be purchased: from accessories, books, decoration items and toys, from 1 euro to 10,000. In their windows they exhibited "products that reach the level of Warhol and Basquiat in the universe of bags" that attracted a lot of traffic, again, to their spaces. Following this expected success, he opened Rouge Mallorca, one of the most exclusive handbag stores Worldwide.
BAGS THAT ARE PURE ART
Drew jokes that he was lucky to find a place to locate a store of these characteristics in front of the Government Delegation. Inside great treasures are hidden : the most sophisticated accessories of Chanel, Hermes or Dior , impossible to find in any Flagship Store, which is why the great elites of Manhattan travel there to buy a bag and get back on the plane.
“When we opened the store, we sold the first bag in 20 minutes. I remember the moment perfectly: it was the fight between an Asian man and a Mallorcan woman over a blue Hermès mini Kelly bag with gold hardware. Obviously, the Mallorcan won”, he says with a knowing smile. “I thought: we have created something unique.”
The arrival of covid in 2020 was an opportunity for Drew, since when people closed their spaces, he acquired four new ones, expanding on the plaça, with the opening of Café RED, Soho Gallery Mallorca and Frame Shop by Gallery RED , from which they make the frames for works in his gallery and others in the same area. They have a close relationship between them, to such an extent that in the neighboring Pelaires Gallery, when they visit each other, they hug and call each other “brothers”.
Rouge Mallorca opened as one of the most exclusive handbag stores in the world.
Over time, the project has spread on the island, contributing pieces to the innovative office center The Circle in Santa Ponça, where luxury designers and real estate agents are based. cleverly, in the private airports de Mallorca and Ibiza has offered an art exhibition as a marketing tool and to promote its emerging artists among CEOs, entrepreneurs and athletes traveling on private planes.
And the concept of Gallery Red still has a long way to go. For example, in the coming months the businessman plans two new openings near the same Plaça de Palma, already known as Gallery RED Square , realizing that there is a great demand for artists, but not all the pieces can be exhibited in the same place as they are different styles.
For example, in mid-April Art Loft will open to bring contemporary art never before seen on the island. Later, in May, he will open another space: Underground by Gallery RED, so that customers can find different treasures, have fun, get to know pieces of art and their artists. There are many more projects, such as including collector's watches in Rouge Mallorca, taking the island's luxury to another level with its vision and galleries.