A hot summer day in Hamburg, and you're not really in the mood for exercise.

Except for "Pepper." Owner Kirsten Roschlaub was just outside with the two-year-old Havanese, and now the animal is scurrying through the well-known gallery on Mittelweg.

"I thought I'd get a small city dog ​​that doesn't need so much exercise," says Roschlaub, adding, "But this dog just wants to run, run, run." Eventually, "Pepper" takes a seat under the table, and a conversation ensues about art, crises, and Roschlaub's complicity in the coronavirus pandemic.

It is said that Hamburg society meets at Kirsten Roschlaub's – is your reputation as a celebrity gallery owner accurate?

In a way, yes. The gallery is certainly a social meeting place. But above all, it's open to everyone.

Mittelweg in Pöseldorf is a fine address, too. But it all started somewhere else, right?

My first gallery was on Klosterwall, under the market hall. It was a cool location, even though the tram seemed to run right through it. But I originally had no intention of becoming a gallery owner.

Rather?

I'm a trained photographer and owned an agency for photographers. In 2003, the space on Klosterwall was available for rent, but only to a gallery. So I said, okay, I'll have a gallery now. I quickly organized the first exhibition for the designer Thai Cong, who was just making a name for himself as a photographer at the time. From then on, it all kind of took on a life of its own.

Its center has always remained Hamburg.

Yes, I consciously chose this great city.

Is there still room for a second love for a place in Germany?

During the coronavirus pandemic, and especially since I got a dog, I've been seriously considering moving to Sylt. There's no place in the world where I can relax like this. Even though the winters can be long and gray, the air and nature there are simply beautiful.

Back to Hamburg: Her family history is said to go back to the pirate Klaus Störtebeker:

According to legend, yes (laughs). Other chronicles point to one of his followers as an ancestor of my family. But what is certain is that my mother's great-grandfather was the First Mayor of Hamburg, Gustav Heinrich Kirchenpauer. My grandfather's family, in turn, emigrated to Brazil but maintained business ties with Hamburg. It got so bad that men of marriageable age had to travel to Hamburg to marry a patrician daughter. So my grandfather set off to visit a family with five daughters. When my grandmother opened the door for him, he is said to have been immediately certain: This is the one.

What role does family play for you?

My family is important to me, but that doesn't mean we see each other all the time. A lot of things happen over WhatsApp, and we even have a family chat there.

You define yourself very much through your work. Do you still get nervous before exhibition openings?

Very much so, and this time (Lego art by Moritz Morbach, ed.) especially so. I couldn't sleep at all afterward because I was still so full of adrenaline. This may sound strange, but I actually don't like being the center of attention.

What was so special this time?

I specialize in photography.

With fine art, unlike photography, it's usually like this: once it's gone, it's gone. And I actually quite like that. Sometimes I imagine having a pizza stand. There would be exactly two flavors, Margherita and salami, and each slice would cost three euros. Anyone could buy it—or leave it. And when everything's sold, I'd go home. That would be something.

When did you decide to become a photographer?

I actually had other plans. I wanted to study law, cared for a wheelchair user, and worked in a gift shop.

When I moved into my first apartment in Volksdorf, I started seriously thinking about my future for the first time. And because I've always loved photography, I applied to the photography academy on Breitenfelder Straße – and was accepted straight away. The academy no longer exists. My first job in the industry was as a photography assistant.

Apprenticeship years are generally known to be no easy years...

And that's how it was for me. I was on the road 200 days and nights in one year as a photo assistant. From morning to night, I lugged heavy equipment. No one took a photo assistant into consideration. If I had said the suitcases were too heavy, someone else would have done it. On a trip to Asia, I knew

One morning I couldn't remember where I was: still in Kuala Lumpur or already in Bali? But it was a lot of fun.

...and then return to Hamburg.

My first studio as a photographer was on Mendelssohnstrasse, and I mostly photographed children's fashion for catalogs. That was around the turn of the millennium, when digital photography was still in its infancy. We still shot mostly analogue, and I was always terrified that the photos wouldn't turn out well and I wouldn't notice until they were developed. Or that my camera bag would be x-rayed at the airport.

Have there been such disasters?

Yes. The worst was certainly an incident after a job for the magazine "Allegra" in Israel. I had photographed a writer in Tel Aviv, and on the way back, everything was confiscated from me at the airport. To this day, I don't know why. I had to leave without my material and without my equipment, and

I never got another job from "Allegra." At some point, I got a call from Paris. A camera bag with my phone number on it was endlessly making its rounds on the baggage carousel. They had simply thrown my equipment onto some plane. I never got the film back.

You married a photographer...

Holger Roschlaub, who worked primarily in the US. He did portraits, but also record covers and video clips for MTV. He was extremely good at his job, and I increasingly shifted to doing production for him instead of taking photographs myself, especially since that was becoming increasingly stressful for me at the time.

Was the temporary loss of the gallery a greater crisis than the breakdown of the marriage?

Crises have accompanied me throughout my life. According to my mother, even as a child, I was always in the eye of the storm. When the loss of the gallery became imminent during the 2008 financial crisis, I had focused my entire life on my job. It was as if my life had stopped, as if I no longer had a life at all. I only functioned according to the motto: What shouldn't be, can't be. And then it happened anyway.

Have the bad memories resurfaced during the Corona lockdown?

Quite the opposite, my experiences have benefited me. I would never let things get as bad as they did back then, and I accepted the coronavirus crisis with a very fatalistic and even relaxed attitude. In some ways, it's even done me good.

Like that?

At the time of the first lockdown, I was at a point where everything was just too much for me. It felt like everyone was pulling at me, one event after another. Later on, I sometimes secretly felt like I was to blame for the coronavirus—because I had so desperately wanted nothing to happen for a while.

First work, then play. You're celebrating a milestone birthday these days.

And I stand by that. Heidi Klum just turned 50, and Kate Moss will soon be too—so I'm in good company.