Larry Gagosian
NOTE: I was holding this piece for tomorrow morning, but since ArtJournal‘s newest blogger, Judith Dobrzynski, this evening discusses what she calls, “the most interesting arts story in Sunday’s New York Times,” I thought I should weigh in now with my contrarian view.
The long profile of mega-dealer Larry Gagosian by David Segal, on the front page of today’s NY Times “Sunday Business” section, should more appropriately have been published in the “Styles” section.
The lead alerts us to what we’re in for—a sartorial description, a reference to Larry’s bevy of “gallerinas,” and innuendo, made repeatedly in the article but never substantiated, suggesting that the current art-market decline might cause Larry’s art empire to “flame out” (in words from the end of the article).
Here are Segal’s opening paragraphs:
At an opening at his Madison Avenue gallery a few weeks ago, Larry
Gagosian wore a dark suit with a window-pane pattern and a look on his
face that said, “Don’t ask.”He stood near the reception desk, beside several of the many gallerinas
he employs, as a few hundred people milled around a collection of new
photographs by Alec Soth and a cache of paintings by Andy Warhol that he bought last year, reportedly
for $200 million. In an art market that has recently gone Code Xanax,
neither he nor his gallery radiated any hints of distress—though
hints of distress have never been the Gagosian style.
I have no idea of how Gagosian’s business is doing, but neither, apparently, does Segal:
No dealer rode the art to the same thin-air heights as Mr. Gagosian. Which might mean he has the farthest to fall…
…or maybe not. “Thin air” is what this “business story” is made of.
Segal refers to “the size of his [Gagosian’s] commission,” but never gives us any indication of what it is. He declares: “It’s telling that he is not a member of the Art Dealers Association of America, an invitation-only group.” But what exactly this is “telling” us, we aren’t told. I suspect his non-member status could have something to do with his penchant for draining top talent from other galleries and for “pitch[ing] paintings that weren’t even for sale, knowing that if the offer were large enough, the owner would thank him,” as Segal describes Gagosian’s method of operation.
Segal’s piece closely tracks this superior piece, published last spring by Sarah Douglas in the Economist‘s “Intelligent Life” magazine, which gets into much greater financial detail about the deals done by its subject. It’s as if Segal had noted Douglas’ sources and worked his way down some of that list, adding updates to reflect the recent art-market decline. He did, however, dig up a few new interviewees—most notably comedian/collector Steve Martin and a former Gagosian girlfriend, who laments that “falling in love, marriage” are “not his priorities.” We even get the name of someone to whom he remained briefly married after a quicky Las Vegas ceremony. I’ll spare you further details (but Segal won’t).
The source with whom neither the Times nor The Economist managed to connect is the eminence gris himself. The fact that Larry “loves to see his name in the New York Times,” as collector Eli Broad told Segal, doesn’t seem to have helped this particular Times reporter.
In my own most recent Gagosian encounter, I sought his comments after Sotheby’s weak Nov. 12 contemporary art sale, where he bought two Serras. He brusquely brushed me off.
I was more successful, though, when I contacted him at the time of the 1999 “Sensation” dust-up at the Brooklyn Museum, when critics decried the fact that several prominent dealers who represented artists in that controversial show had provided financial support for it.
Here’s my report on what Gagosian then told me, which appeared in my Brooklyn Hangs Tough article, published in the January 2000 issue of Art in America:
Of the 38 dealers contacted by [Brooklyn Museum director Arnold] Lehman to be patrons of the “Sensation”
gala, several purchased blocks of tickets for the benefit dinner,
including Larry Gagosian, who paid $10,000 for a table.“It was a
no-brainer,” explained Gagosian, who represents Damien Hirst and Jenny
Saville, two artists in the show.Gagosian, who considers Saatchi “one
of my best friends,” told A.i.A. that he had also recently spent
$10,000 to support a gala at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.,
and he had split with two other dealers the entire cost of a recent
lavish Guggenheim Museum dinner in New York.“This seems like normal
art-world business as I know it,” commented the dealer. “It’s just
common sense. If I can afford to be helpful, it’s a win-win situation:
It helps the institution and it helps the artist. I don’t think it
contaminates anything. They’re not doing the show based on the $10,000
I gave them.”He added that he never contributes “direct exhibition
support” to museums and that he does not believe that “Sensation” will
have “any impact, negative or positive” on the market for the artists’
works. Potential purchasers “already knew these artists,” he asserted.
Scruples against dealers’ providing “direct exhibition support” for shows of work by their artists now seem almost quaint. Gagosian, for example, was among several dealers who openly provided support (scroll down) for LA MOCA’s celebrated Murakami show, which traveled to Brooklyn and to Frankfurt’s Museum for Modern Art. It has now touched down at the Guggenheim Bilbao. His generous but self-interested museum philanthropy didn’t get into today’s article, however.
There is undoubtedly a fascinating business story to be told about Gagosian’s international art empire. But today’s Times piece isn’t it.