Gagosian Gallery
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Gagosian Gallery is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. There are currently eleven gallery spaces: three in New York; two in London; one in each of Beverly Hills, Rome, Athens, Paris, Geneva and Hong Kong.
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[edit] 1980s
Gagosian Gallery began in 1979 in Los Angeles.[1] In 1985, the business moved from Los Angeles to New York. In 1986, Gagosian opened a second space on West 23rd Street in Manhattan.[2]
The Gagosian Gallery programme made exhibitions of contemporary art, as well as presenting works of Modern art.
In the 1980s, the Los Angeles gallery showed the work of young contemporary artists such as Eric Fischl, Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Salle, as the New York City space mounted exhibitions dedicated to the history of The New York School, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art by showing the earlier work of Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and Willem de Kooning.
In 1989, a new and more spacious gallery opened in New York City at 980 Madison Avenue with the inaugural exhibition: "The Maps of Jasper Johns." During its first two years, the Madison Avenue space, once used by Sotheby's, presented work by Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly and Jackson Pollock. At the same time, several artists such as Walter de Maria, Philip Taaffe and Francesco Clemente joined the gallery.
[edit] 1990s
Gagosian Gallery’s second New York City location opened in the neighborhood of SoHo, then the heart of the New York art scene, in 1991. Shortly before, the gallery had wooed David Salle and Philip Taaffe from long-term relationships with the Mary Boone Gallery.[3] The new venue served to show large-scale works by artists such as Richard Serra, Mark di Suvero, Barnett Newman, and Chris Burden. The downtown location showed younger artists such as Ellen Gallagher, Jenny Saville, Douglas Gordon and Cecily Brown. The uptown gallery maintained its commitment to historical exhibitions by showing monumental sculptures by Miró, Calder and Moore.
Andy Warhol was exhibited at both New York galleries, in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation, including exhibitions of his Rorschach Paintings, Camouflage Paintings, Late Hand-Painted Paintings, Oxidation Paintings and the Diamond Dust Shadow Paintings. In 1996, The Damien Hirst exhibition "No Sense of Absolute Corruption," was the first exhibition in America to show Hirst’s animals in formaldehyde tanks, a controversial series of the artist’s oeuvre.
Gagosian opened a location in Beverly Hills designed by architect Richard Meier in 1995. The Beverly Hills gallery mounted exhibitions by Edward Ruscha, Nan Goldin, Frank Gehry, Jeff Koons and Richard Prince. It also showed modern artists such as Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein and Abstract Expressionism group exhibitions.
In 1999, Gagosian Gallery moved from SoHo to West 24th Street, in New York’s industrial Chelsea. Richard Gluckman designed the 25,000-square-foot (2,300 m2) gallery in which Richard Serra presented the monumental sculpture, “Switch,” in November 1999. The new space was fully completed in September. The uniquely large viewing space at West 24th Street allowed Gagosian artists, such as Richard Serra, Damien Hirst and Robert Therrien, to exhibit large scale works with great flexibility.
[edit] 2000s
In spring of 2000, Gagosian became an international gallery with the opening of a Caruso St John-designed space on Heddon Street in Picadilly, London. The U.K. gallery inaugurated its exhibitions program with a performance by the Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft, followed by an exhibition of works by Chris Burden. In September 2000, in New York, Gagosian held the Hirst show, Damien Hirst: Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings. 100,000 people visited the show in 12 weeks, and all the work was sold. The exhibition was the subject of a Channel 4 TV documentary in the UK.
A second London Gallery, also designed by Caruso St John, on Britannia Street, opened in May 2004 with a paintings and sculpture show by Cy Twombly. Comparable to the Chelsea exhibition space in size, this addition was then the largest commercial art gallery in London.[4] It accommodated large sculpture, video pieces and installations such as Martin Kippenberger's show, The Magical Misery Tour, Brazil. The Heddon Street location closed in July 2005, and a new storefront space on Davies Street opened simultaneously with an historic exhibition of Pablo Picasso prints.
To complement the West 24th Street gallery, a Richard Gluckman designed space on West 21st Street opened in October 2006. A joint exhibition with the 24th Street gallery, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Works of Andy Warhol, launched Gagosian Gallery’s second location in Chelsea and third location in New York. In 2009, the 21st Street gallery held an exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s late works entitled Mosqueteros, curated by Picasso historian, John Richardson. The show received high critical acclaim and great attendance.
Having established itself with historical exhibitions, the Madison Avenue location introduced a fifth floor gallery space, set up to focus more on young and upcoming artists. Featuring works by Hayley Tompkins and Anselm Reyle, Old Space New Space inaugurated the space in January 2007. The fifth floor gallery has since showcased the works of Steven Parrino, Mark Grotjahn and Isa Genzken, Dan Colen and Dash Snow, to name a few.
With the continued success of the Los Angeles, New York, and London galleries, Gagosian opened a gallery in Rome in 2007 exhibiting new works by Cy Twombly. The Italian space is a refurbished former bank, redesigned by Rome-based architect Firouz Galdo in collaboration with Caruso St John. The renovation transformed the classical space into a state-of-the-art contemporary gallery while retaining its distinctively Roman character.
In November 2008, Gagosian Gallery expanded its Madison Avenue gallery to the fourth floor, with an inaugural exhibition of works by Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti in Isabel and Other Intimate Strangers, in collaboration with the Giacometti Foundation and the Bacon Foundation.[5]
Between 2003 and 2008, many artists who had previously represented by other renowned galleries joined Gagosian, such as Piotr Uklanski and Anselm Reyle from Gavin Brown's Enterprise; John Currin from Andrea Rosen; Mike Kelley from Metro Pictures; Tom Friedman from Feature; Takashi Murakami from Marianne Boesky; and Richard Phillips from Friedrich Petzel.[6]
[edit] 2010s
In 2010, Gagosian opened its Paris gallery on 350-square-meter (3,757 square feet) at 4, rue de Ponthieu, where it debuted with an exhibition of five new acrylic abstracts and five bronze sculptures by Cy Twombly. In early 2011, the gallery, which has had a representative in Hong Kong since 2008, opened the doors on an exhibition space there.[7] The outpost was inaugurated with an exhibition by Damien Hirst.
[edit] Legal defeat
In December 2008 photographer Patrick Cariou filed suit against Richard Prince, Gagosian Gallery, Lawrence Gagosian and Rizzoli International Publications in Federal district court for copyright infringement in work shown at Prince's Canal Zone exhibit at the Gagosian gallery. He appropriated 35 photographs made by Cariou. Several of the pieces were barely changed by Prince. Prince also made 28 paintings that included images from Cariou’s Yes Rasta book.
On March 18, 2011, US District Judge Deborah A. Batts ruled against Prince, Gagosian Gallery, Inc., and Lawrence Gagosian. The court found that the use by Prince was not fair use (his primary defence), and Cariou's issue of liability for copyright infringement was granted in its entirety.[8] The court cited much case law including the Rogers v. Koons case of 1992.[8]
[edit] Auction records
Gagosian Gallery aims to maintain the price level of its artists by actively playing a role at art auctions. When Christie's established an auction record for Henri Matisse by selling a bronze relief for $48.8 million in 2010, it was Gagosian that bought the work.[9] Also, Gagosian Gallery purchased Ed Ruscha' Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk (1965) for $3.2 million at Phillips de Pury in 2010, again establishing an auction record for that artist.[10] Not long after joining Gagosian Gallery in 2003, the painter John Currin made his auction record of $847,500; his highest price before was a little over half that.[11]
[edit] Further expansions
Strong relationships with Russian collectors and an expanding Russian art scene, encouraged Gagosian Gallery to host temporary exhibitions in Moscow. In 2007, "Insight?" featured works by Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Willem de Kooning and Pablo Picasso, in the Barvikha Luxury Village.[citation needed]
In 2008, Gagosian Gallery hosted a group show at the "Red October Chocolate Factory" on the Moscow River, "For What You are About to Receive," which included over 100 works of art by Gagosian artists, including six never-before-seen Cy Twombly paintings from 2004.[citation needed]
[edit] Artists
Exhibited artists include:
[edit] Press
Larry Gagosian is consistently listed in the top 10 of ArtReview's "Power 100" for the top 100 important people in the contemporary art world. (#1 in 2004 and 2010 and #2 in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008).[12]
Art critic Jed Perl, writing in The New Republic, in an essay titled: "What money is doing to art, or how the art world lost its mind: Laissez-Faire Aesthetics," observed that, "The big galleries don't do shows anymore, they do coronations and requiems. Larry Gagosian has perfected this style. His exhibition spaces are so extraordinarily scaled that on the rare occasions when the art is really good, as was the case with the David Smith show Personnage last spring, the grandiosity can feel genuine. But when the coronation is for John Currin, the corruption is almost unbearable."
[edit] References
- ^ Scott Reyburn (October 25, 2010), Gagosian Sells $20 Million Art in Paris, Plans Global Growth Bloomberg.com.
- ^ Jeffrey Hogrefe, "Gagosian Pays $5.75 Million for Largest Gallery in Chelsea," The New York Observer, August 22, 1999
- ^ Grace Glueck (June 24, 1991), One Art Dealer Who's Still a High Roller New York Times.
- ^ Charlotte Higgins (10 May 2004), King's Cross a Go-Go as top US art dealer unveils new gallery The Guardian.
- ^ David Segal (March 8, 2009). "Pulling Art Sales Out of Thinning Air". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/business/08larry.html?pagewanted=all.
- ^ Roberta Smith (April 18, 2008), Dear Gallery: It Was Fun, but I’m Moving Up New York Times.
- ^ Alexandra A. Seno (December 10, 2010), At Last, a Gagosian Space in Hong Kong Wall Street Journal Blog.
- ^ a b Walker, David (2007-03-21). "Appropriation Artist Richard Prince Liable for Infringement, Court Rules". Photo District News. http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/Appropriation-Artist-2241.shtml.
- ^ Katya Kazakina and Scott Reyburn (December 29, 2010), Picasso Nude Beats Giacometti, Chinese Vase in 2010’s Top Sales Bloomberg.
- ^ Katya Kazakina and Lindsay Pollock (May 14, 2010), Cnet Founder Minor Sells $21.1 Million of Art to Pay Creditors Bloomberg.
- ^ Sarah Douglas (2009), Larry Gagosian: The Art of the Deal The Economist Intelligent Life Magazine.
- ^ http://www.artreview.com/power100
[edit] External links
- Gagosian Gallery official website
- Larry Gagosian and Thomas Ammann to buy Hughes Warhols together
- Larry Gagosian & Peter Brant Tax Scandal
- Channel 4 site on Damien Hirst's show at Gagosian in 2000
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