The Canvas Monthly: Exclusive Excerpts
It’s the last Friday in July and The Canvas sincerely hopes that you’re spending it outside of the office. With the summer officially more than halfway over, there aren’t that many weekends left to sneak away and soak up the sunshine with a refreshing Negroni in hand.
But since it would be a downright dereliction of duty to cordon off your mind from the goings-on of the art world and zone out entirely, The Canvas also genuinely hopes that you’ll consider our latest monthly report as suitable beachside reading material. We try to keep things light and fun while also providing meaningful access to the leaders and decision makers in the industry.
By subscribing below you’ll get access to our interviews with Hauser & Wirth partner, Marc Payot, ADAA president and co-founder of Menconi+Schoelkopf, Andrew Schoelkopf, and Art Agency, Partners co-founder and chairman of Sotheby’s Global Fine Arts division, Allan Schwartzman. You’ll also be able to read our exclusive look inside Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern department, our roundup of recent hires and current job openings, as well as our June report with Marc Spiegler, Brett Gorvy, and Sean Kelly.
All you need to do in order to be in the know and gain insider knowledge of what’s happening in the market is subscribe below by paying the oh so reasonable $18 per month (or $179 per year). And since we firmly believe in a little taste before diving into a relationship head first, scroll down for a few juicy excerpts from our most recent interviews.
In the meantime though, feel free to reach out to us (either by replying to this email or at editorial@thecanvas.online) to give us your feedback and make suggestions for what you want to see in our future editions.
The Canvas: The gallery is best known for its representation of contemporary artists such as Mark Bradford, Jenny Holzer, etc... however, looking through the roster it becomes evident just how many estates Hauser & Wirth works with as well. How would you describe the gallery's approach in the past to working in the secondary market, and with Liberté Nuti’s appointment, how would you describe it moving forward?
Marc Payot: While Hauser & Wirth is of course known globally for representing living artists, we have over a quarter of a century's experience and expertise in the area of 20th century modern masters. Since our very first year in business in 1992, we have consistently organized important, critically acclaimed historical exhibitions and published new scholarship and research into postwar and modern art. And we have released coveted catalogs devoted to the pivotal figures of 20th century art.
Our position has always been that connoisseurship and collecting at the highest level involve 'connecting the dots' between new art and breakthroughs of the past century -- contextualizing art of the present and re-contextualizing art of the past. The living artists we work with are immersed in the ideas of their predecessors and so are we. This balance is essential to everything we do and it will be even more important going forward. So it is quite natural that Liberté, with her experience and expertise in 20th century art, is joining us now.
Q: The process for a gallery to be admitted to the ADAA is particularly discreet. It's by invitation only and subject to approval by the entire membership. Marc Spiegler of Art Basel has come out publicly and said that the fair won't admit any galleries as exhibitors if they don't have a physical gallery space. Is there a point in the future in which the ADAA might consider member galleries without actual gallery presences (i.e only a digital presence?)
Andrew Schoelkopf: The ADAA has members that have public spaces, as well as members that are private dealers. Both are welcome in our organization and both can apply for The Art Show. Among the major criteria for becoming an ADAA member is that a dealer makes substantial contributions to the cultural community beyond the buying and selling of art. That could include: offering direct experiences with incredible works of art from all periods and styles; nurturing artists throughout their careers; advancing scholarship and curatorial research; and supporting artistic projects. A physical gallery can be a major part of accomplishing this, but there are also dealers who do important work without a public space.
The Canvas (continued from an earlier question): So they’re leapfrogging over the artists of their own generation…
Allan Schwartzman: Exactly. And consequently what we’ve been seeing in the market is the formation of a number of phenomena. The primary phenomenon is that historically the gallery that represented the artists of a new generation was led by a dealer of that same generation, and as those artists matured, and the market for their work matured, the galleries also matured and rose up to meet the needs of the market both in terms of price and access to collectors. Now in the last 20 years or so, few of those galleries have been able to grow their businesses for a variety of reasons. And what we’ve seen in particular over the last few years is that there are basically two galleries that have become especially successful at growing their businesses both in terms of moving further back in time in terms of the work they deal with, and moving forward with younger generations of artists that emerge on a very selective basis.
And those two galleries are David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth. They’ve both done a remarkable job in their own ways of maturing and adapting to the needs of their collectors. Many dealers of younger generations have matured and grown with their artists, but not in the same way that it would have happened in the past. Instead, we’ve seen a migration of many of the younger artists for whom there’s a greater demand to galleries such as Hauser & Wirth and David Zwirner; and other dealers of an earlier generation such as Marian Goodman, Barbara Gladstone, Gagosian, Pace, etc…
And for the most part- and this even goes back to Leo Castelli- galleries make most of their money on two or three artists; they’re the ones who carry the expenses associated with running a gallery. And over the years, the cost of doing business has increased dramatically as mega-galleries have grown in scale (both in facilities and in services being offered to collectors), with younger galleries trying to keep up.
The base costs for operating a gallery are pretty much the same whether you’re selling pieces for $20,000 or $200,000. And when there’s this extra stress of the need to participate in a substantial number of fairs throughout the year, it creates a lot of stress points. So when you’re a gallery that’s depending upon two or three artists to carry the entire program, it can be a fatal impact if one of those artists leaves to join one of the more established galleries.
With that said however, you can find certain mature galleries that deal in the middle of the market that have found their individual ways of thriving in today’s environment. For example there’s Esther Schipper in Berlin, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, and Blum & Poe in Los Angeles… These are all galleries that don’t necessarily have the same desire to grow to the same extent as Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth, but have all found a niche in dealing with the types of artists they represent.