‘It Was the Greatest Adventure of My Life’: Olivier Babin and the True Story of CLEARING

“It was the greatest adventure of my life,” says Olivier Babin at one point during our two-hour conversation a week ago. I’d set out to uncover the real story behind CLEARING; it quickly became clear that his was a story defined by a rare alignment of lucky stars. As we spoke, he was painting—something he could finally return to after fourteen years as a gallerist during which he’d built an internationally recognized gallery that bridged the U.S. and Europe and championed, early on, some of the most inspiring artists of the past decade.