König Galerie

Founded by Johann König as “Johann König, Berlin” in 2002, KÖNIG GALERIE is characterized by an interdisciplinary, concept-driven approach, encompassing a wide array of artistic media, from sculpture and painting to video, installation, printmaking, photography, and performance.

KÖNIG GALERIE is a dynamic platform for contemporary art in Berlin and beyond. Now a multinational operation, KÖNIG has established pop-up spaces in London, Vienna, Tokyo, and Monaco, as well as a second location in Berlin at Telegraphenamt. In 2021, KÖNIG SEOUL opened in the Korean Capital. KÖNIG MEXICO CITY, an artist residency, opened in early 2024, followed by KÖNIG MUNICH in May 2024, the gallery’s third location in Germany. 

The Challenge

Inspired by the desire to match the innovative and progressive mission of the gallery at large, KÖNIG chose to invest in Artlogic to scale-up their tech: “We were always an innovative and progressive gallery and the tools we were using were not matching us any longer.”

Previously, KÖNIG was working from an offline database via an in-house server that could only be accessed via VPN. “It was not ideal for colleagues who were working remotely from Art Fairs, exhibitions or even from home.”

As the gallery scaled, it began to struggle with its multitude of systems that didn’t synchronize or facilitate dynamic, global operations: “Presentation creation of available works constantly needed to be updated manually, as well as uploads to the website, Artsy, contact management, contract management: we were using too many tools for different purposes that were not interacting with each other.”

Images: left: Clédia Fourniau - Small 26 clear, the swan, 2024 photo by Romain Darnaud / right: Ayako Rokkaku - Unitiled, 20024
Photo by David Bonet. Courtesy of the Artist and KÖNIG GALERIE 

The Solution

KÖNIG opted for Artlogic due to the fact that the system is so dynamic and well adapted to the specific needs of a gallery: “all departments of the art business can find the necessary tools to work.”

Artlogic’s interactive and customizable elements, as well as its real-time capabilities, aid the team at KÖNIG to work collaboratively with 100% accountability: “work done in the database has a footprint” providing accurate, up-to-date artwork records that are accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Also saving the gallery hours of time and manual data entry is the Artlogic/Artsy integration: “Uploads to Artsy was also a completely manual labor by copy pasting information, and now we can be sure we have one source of truth [Artlogic]" 

And, by making good use of the Private Views feature, KÖNIG has streamlined its output, reducing the hours of time and manpower that used to go into presentation creation: “We’ve never had anything like Private Views before. Previously, our presentations had to be assembled manually in InDesign by the graphic team, requiring constant updates whenever a piece was sold, a price changed, or a new image needed to be added.” Now, by using Artlogic Private Views, professional presentations are automatically populated with the correct information, proving to be a far streamlined system.

Images: eft: Erwin Wurm - Yikes (Substitutes), Photo by Roman März / right: Jeppe Hein - Yellow Modified Social Bench #11, 2023

Photo by Roman März. Courtesy of the Artist and KÖNIG GALERIE

The Results

Since implementing Artlogic, the gallery has been able to increase its global business efficiency across its full portfolio via the multi-gallery feature: “the multi gallery feature is extremely helpful: we can finally separate our different entities' book keeping within one database.”

The overall impact of Artlogic sees KÖNIG “streamline processes, reducing the need for multiple tools and minimizing manual tasks. This enables our team to work more efficiently, delivering up-to-date and accurate data with a leaner team while achieving greater results.”

Having achieved so much, the gallery is stepping into its bright future armed with the organizational and technical tools it needs to continue the rapid growth exhibited over the past few years alone: “Reflecting on the past year, we achieved significant milestones, including the opening of our second location in Berlin, establishing an artist residency in Mexico City, and launching a new gallery in Munich. These accomplishments set a strong foundation for what lies ahead.”