Art Market
The 25 Rising Power Players Who Will Run the Art Market
As an older generation begins to cede control of major galleries and auction house departments, a new guard is taking shape. To identify this cohort’s brightest rising stars, we talked to dozens of market specialists, old and young, to create a list of 25 ambitious individuals who are currently powering this $63.7 billion industry—and who will eventually be running it.
We decided to focus this group on the women and men rising up within established centers of art world power—primarily large galleries and auction houses—rather than on people who have launched their own firms (though we have and will continue to celebrate those entrepreneurs elsewhere). That’s not to diminish the bravery it takes to start a business in an industry where the economics are often stacked against newcomers, but instead an opportunity to highlight the hard work that takes place away from the evening sale floor and beside gallery owners’ desks.
Here’s a look at 25 individuals at galleries and auction houses who are increasingly calling the shots.
Yuki Terase is nothing if not patient. In May 2017, Sotheby’s auctioneer Oliver Barker opened the bidding on a skull painting, and a bidding war erupted between her client, the billionaire e-retail businessman Yusaku Maezawa, and a man in the room bidding on behalf of the Fertitta brothers, the Las Vegas wrestling moguls. For 20 minutes, the bids kept coming, with Terase calmly nodding her head, nudging her client higher, until the Fertittas bowed out and the painting was Maezawa’s for a hammer price of $98 million, or $110.5 million with fees. Since joining Sotheby’s in 2011, she has been a key figure in Sotheby’s plan to make inroads with Asian collectors and establish itself as the go-to place for the region’s collectors to buy.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
The average age of collectors will be younger, predominantly driven by Asia. It is fascinating to meet so many new collectors coming into the market, learning very rapidly about the art world by travelling and seeing art firsthand. Forty percent of our new clients in Asia are under 40. I also think collecting will be more personal, in a way that people will start to curate their own aesthetics and not be bound by conventional categories.
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Jona Lueddeckens is just 29, but he’s spent nearly half of his lifetime in the thick of the art market—he bought his first work at 15, and started working at Galerie Mark Müller in Zurich three days after his high school graduation. He’s been at Gagosian Gallery since 2010, and as a native German, Lueddeckens has connected the mega-gallery to artists and collectors in his home country.
He was instrumental in bringing Katharina Grosse into the gallery’s program, and at this year’s Art Cologne, he organized an all-sculpture booth that paired ’s magnificent Sex Tower (Architectural Model of 125 foot high Sex Tower) (1986) with a very realistic dog. When real dogs being walked through the fair saw it, they started barking.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
Electronic information has had a massive influence over the past 10 years, not just that everyone is much better informed, but it really enabled the market to grow. I wish I knew the biggest change in the next 10 years, but I think we’ll certainly see a lot more activity in Asia.
Many dealerships become family affairs, with parents handing down control of a gallery to the next generation. But Sean Kelly Gallery, on the upper reaches of Chelsea, goes beyond that—founder Sean Kelly employs both his son, Thomas, and his daughter, Lauren, as directors at the gallery. In addition to bringing on artists such as into the stable, 35-year-old Lauren Kelly has been the gallery’s point person for a number of Cuban artists it has shown, including , the only female member of the Cuban group of artists called Diez Pintores Concretos—and who, Lauren noted, is unfairly undervalued by the market. “Unfortunately, she is often overshadowed by her male counterparts,” she said.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
I think the biggest change we face in an increasingly digital world is making sure that the physical acts of visiting a gallery and standing in front of an artwork remain vital experiences for younger generations, whether you are a collector or simply an art enthusiast. Instagram and the internet are excellent places to promote artists and our program, but there is nothing that can replace experiencing an artwork in person.
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Image courtesy of Phillips.
Each of the big three auction houses have a mid-season sale of young artists, and the “New Now” sale at Phillips is often the most risk-taking of the three. Run by Sam Mansour in New York, the auction has introduced a slew of artists to the secondary market with impressive results. In February, a work by with a high estimate of $20,000 sold for $50,000, and a painting with a high estimate of $15,000 sold for $75,000.
Prior to the September “New Now” sale, Mansour unleashed on his Instagram images of the hot young artist ’s Hope For Men (2013), an installation of two TV screens held up by a unwieldy sling made of extension cords. It’s not usually what you sell at the rostrum—this was Sammak’s auction debut—but Mansour boldly slotted it at the first lot. It ably sold, and the sale went on to notch new auction records for nine different artists.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
From a secondary market perspective, it’s always tough to evaluate works that don’t fall neatly into the “paintings and drawings” categories—, work, —any work that requires prolonged critical and intellectual reflection is always going to be undervalued from a resale perspective. Luckily, there are dedicated collectors and dealers who continue to support those artists.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
We’re seeing a ton of attention paid to art fairs lately, and I think something’s got to give there. They’re far from the ideal setting in which to show work, even in a dedicated booth, and yet they’ve come to dominate such a part of the market in both good and bad ways.
Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Diddy, 2018. Courtesy of Salon 94.
Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Kurt the Flirt, 2018. Courtesy of Salon 94.
Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn’s Salon 94 has historically championed women artists and black artists, well before works by were selling for over $20 million and became the hottest artist at Art Basel. But gallery director Ashley Stewart thinks there’s still a long way to go. “Recently, I have witnessed a surge of collectors wanting to add African-American artists to their collections, but I think it’s important to ask them why,” said Stewart, who came to the gallery in 2015 from David Zwirner.
By showing artists such as , whose current Salon 94 show opened in September, Stewart wants to ensure collectors are buying for the right reasons. “Do they really respond to the work or are they responding to political, cultural, and social pressures?” she said. “There are plenty of articles in the press about the trendiness of ‘black’ art and overtures to inclusivity and diversity, but the art world is still a far cry from an accurate reflection of our modern world.”
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
Overall, I believe gallerists will continue to scale back as they are forced to think more strategically about visibility, artist placement, how their staff functions, and general models of efficiency. Innovations in technology will continue to influence how collectors experience and buy art. It may even allow some gallerists to operate without a physical space.
Since joining Sotheby’s in 2014 just months after graduating from Harvard, Caspar Jopling stayed relatively behind the scenes, working closely with CEO Tad Smith to develop business strategies during a tumultuous ebb in the market and significant personnel changes at the house. He’s also moonlighted as a specialist, selling what the house described as “a number of important works of contemporary and modern art” in private sales, as at auction.
This makes sense, given he began collecting as a teenager in London, encouraged by his uncle, White Cube founder Jay Jopling. In March, the younger Jopling, 26, came out from the background when the Sotheby’s website posted a slideshow of work from that month’s “Contemporary Curated” sale, which had been hand-selected by Jopling and his fiancée, pop singer Ellie Goulding. Jopling chose works by artists including , , and ; Goulding opted for , , and , among others.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
I wouldn’t be so brash as to discuss publicly individual artist’s markets. What I will say (and this is not a novel observation, but is important to reiterate) is that there is a huge number of female artists, both modern and contemporary, that are still overlooked. Given the importance many female artists have played in pushing the boundaries of art, I look forward to seeing their reputation catch up, and undoubtedly their “market” will follow suit.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
Data. There is no question that data is going to play a much greater part in the market in the next decade, most likely driven by blockchain technology. Also, I see augmented reality and mixed reality technology having a huge effect on the market—mostly due to the “accessibility” of having masterpieces on your wall at home.
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Thor Shannon has been one of the most universally well-liked people on the New York scene since starting at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in 2013 as an assistant. By 2015, he was an integral part of the transition from the gallery’s one hub in the West Village to two locations: a second-floor Chinatown space and a gigantic warehouse in Harlem, where it’s able to host multiple museum-scale shows at once. At the new space, Shannon has been an indefatigable organizer of shows, such as ’s GBE debut, which hosted the New York premiere of his now-famous video work, Love is the Message, The Message is Death.
The 27-year-old Shannon also blessed the art world by organizing a 2015 party bus equipped with stripper poles and stocked with champagne to shuttle dozens of crazy downtown kids to ’s opening at the Brant Foundation in Greenwich, Connecticut. The suburb has never been the same since.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
is the artist who immediately comes to mind. It astounds me that, for example, a highly significant, encompassing, complex, poetic multimedia installation of hers—what would be a pearl of any museum’s collection—could sell for less than an abstract painting made this year by someone in their twenties. That said, I am unendingly shocked (though at this point, I shouldn’t be) at how undervalued artworks by women are in relation to their male peers, Joan [Jonas] being a prime example.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Gavin [Brown] has created a gallery that is unique in the art world, I think, in the contradictions it embodies simultaneously. It is somehow, all at once, an enormous and intimate place, hyperglobal and hyperlocal in its focus, cool and uncool, cerebral and stupid, boisterous and restrained. It has this elastic ability to shapeshift with the times, continually evolving to stay ahead of the pack, while rigidly refusing to deviate from its original, radical, politically oriented, community-oriented, and artist-oriented point of view. In six years of working here, it has never stopped being interesting, challenging, and very, very fun.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
It’s 2028. There are literally infinite Infinity Rooms across the globe. Every city has its own Hauser & Wirth Hotel and respective art fair (#ArtChernobyl). Gagosian opens a new exhibition in one of its 8,000 global locations every hour. A contemporary art evening sale is held at Christie’s every other night; every other other night, Sotheby’s holds theirs. Phillips only hosts day sales, but every day. Every television network has its own show set in the art world—deadpan mockumentary MoCA PS3 on NBC; prestige ’90s period dramedy Matthew’s Marks with sultry intrigue on HBO; the talk show Listen at Lisson on VH1, et al. Every museum has hosted, per a globally ratified agreement, at least one Beyoncé and/or Jay-Z video. Montreal is the new Auckland, which was the new Helsinki, which was the new Cairo, which was the new Berlin. has turned permanently to stone. The Venice Biennale happens underwater.
According to the 2018 Hiscox Online Art Trade report, online sales across the three major auction houses went up more than 15 percent in 2017. Phillips has grown its online auction presence swiftly in the four years since entering the space, holding 44 online auctions in 2017.
Katherine Lukacher, the new head of all online sales at Phillips, said that is just the beginning. “Phillips introduced online bidding in 2014, and in just four short years, clients are becoming more and more comfortable buying art online,” Lukacher, who is 30, said. “As some of these newer buyers enter the market, I’m sure we will see a surge in activity across the board, for both mid-range pieces, as well as for those with loftier estimates.”
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
One of my favorite artists who has been undervalued over the years is , who rose to fame in the 1970s with her works of art, but whose career was somewhat brief. Fortunately, she has since been academically justified with the opening of her first major American retrospective in [nearly] four decades, which is open right now at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.
Hauser & Wirth co-owner Iwan Wirth often jets around the world, checking in on the mega-gallery’s spaces in a former brewery in Zurich, a historic ski chalet in Gstaad, and in a block-sized former factory in downtown Los Angeles. Wherever Wirth is, it’s likely that 29-year-old director Michael Walker—who works most closely with the gallery’s co-founder and has helped with its global expansion—is there at his side. But part of the gallery’s role is to stay local, and Hauser & Wirth keeps at its core a focus on nurturing artists and serving many of its original clients, said Walker. He added that he’s working on an artist residency in northern Kenya, and working there with , , , , and .
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
For me, a clear example of this is ’s work from the early 1960s. This body of work links his celebrated period of the 1950s (where he was a leading figure in the ) with his later exploration of figuration in the 1970s. It is a period in which he confronted the aesthetic concerns of the New York School—questioning modes of image-making and what it means to paint abstractly. In that sense, they are extraordinary, radical, and hugely important in terms of art history, yet offer great buying opportunities relative to the early and later work.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
I think the market will continue to grow at the extraordinary rate that it has been in recent years. Of course, there will be pullbacks (due to external shocks that are not tied to the art market itself), but I believe the entrance of new players will continue unabated. We have seen this through the rise of China, and this market will continue to grow, albeit with challenges for dealers to target it in the right way. There is a thirst for art globally, both in the commercial and institutional sectors, so the market will expand in line with this.
Harold Ancart, Untitled, 2018. © Harold Ancart. Photo by JSP Art Photography. Courtesy David Zwirner, London.
Harry Scrymgeour joined David Zwirner in February, having previously worked at Michael Werner overseeing a gallery roster chock full of German post-war masters, and a stint at Clearing, the gallery with outposts in Brooklyn, the Upper East Side, and Brussels. It made sense, then, that a few months down the line, David Zwirner announced it would be giving a solo show in London to , the longtime Clearing artist who turned heads when one of his paintings sold for $751,500 at a Christie’s afternoon sale in November 2016.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
There are lots of artworks that seem really cheap to me; late , , or …or drawings.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
I imagine there will be a lot more digital stuff happening in the market at large, and our digital tools will certainly improve, but it won’t have a huge effect on the corner of the market that I’m involved in. Art has to be a multi-sensory experience. As you walk through the rooms, the feeling and sound of your feet on the floorboards, and the shifting light that comes through the tall windows, have a profound effect on the way you experience and understand an artwork. This is something that can’t be replicated on a screen.
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Emily Kaplan started out as a floater doing temp work at Sotheby’s in 2010, and spent the next five years working as an assistant, a cataloguer, and a specialist before taking over the “Contemporary Curated” mid-season sale in 2015. This year, the 30-year-old was poached by Christie’s post-war and contemporary team, which is led Sotheby’s vets Alex Rotter and Loïc Gouzer.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
artists and have long been overshadowed and degraded as second-tier Abstract Expressionists. For a long time, Krasner was identified simply as Jackson Pollock’s wife, and not the masterful painter she is in her own right. and , to name two African-American artists working in the 1960s and 1970s, rose from relative obscurity only a few years ago, and have only recently gained recognition in the marketplace, partly because of the travelling [show] “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.”
Another market I am watching is . Works by , , and in particular are both historically significant and commercial, and very well-collected around the United States, but I can see the prices rising over the next few years.
Alex Logsdail’s father is Nicholas Logsdail, who, at 21, founded Lisson Gallery, one of London’s first contemporary art galleries, in 1967, and has run it ever since. But Logsdail’s fils wasn’t always going to follow in his father’s footsteps and start working for Lisson right off the bat: While in college, Alex went to Basel with his dad and ended up hanging with the crew from Artforum, which led to an internship at the magazine.
After graduation, Alex worked at Deitch Projects and Team before eventually joining his father’s London gallery in 2009. In 2012, he opened a Lisson Gallery office in New York, and in 2014, plans were announced to open a grand space underneath the High Line. That space opened in 2016, and is currently hosting sculptures by , the 103-year-old artist whom Logsdail, 32, began showing at the gallery in the early 2010s. In 2017, the gallery inaugurated a second space around the corner to host complementary programming; this is where Logsdail showcases younger artists such as , who officially joined Lisson in September 2018.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
There is nothing quite as satisfying as hanging a show with an artist and seeing their vision for their work become a reality in real time.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
In today’s world, 10 years is an eternity. I doubt any major predictions I had would become a reality. There is certainly some basis for technological advances in how the art world operates, but it has been very resistant to adopting anything significant so far.
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In March 2016, a billboard went up in the Mexico City neighborhood of La Condesa featuring a weird-looking cactus and the phrase ¿Dónde estamos? Stylish passersby likely thought it to be a strange ad, but art insiders knew it was a work by , set up by art dealer Bree Zucker for a space called Sonora 128 and supported by the gallery she worked for, Mexico City and New York’s influential Kurimanzutto.
When that gallery began planning to open a project space in New York, Zucker, who is 31, was tapped to run it alongside senior director Lissa McClure. There, she’s been applying the skills she honed running Sonora 128 to present shows with the gallery’s deep artist roster, which includes , , and . The first show at its New York space had installing items suspended from the ceiling, causing gallery-goers to swerve and duck. The opening also had a little taste of Kurimanzutto’s hometown: Zucker was filling guests’ plastic cups with mezcal.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
Nothing that the market hasn’t seen before. There are always periods of expansion, concentration, and later, contraction. However, what I would like to see is a return to valuing art for the art itself, not just for its market value. Which is another way of saying that the art world should start supporting real art, instead of mediocrity, which happens to be in fashion at any given moment.
Flesh and Spirit (1982-83) by Jean-Michel Basquiat is viewed during a Sotheby’s preview of the May Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art, in New York on May 4, 2018. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images.
In fall 2015, Sotheby’s experienced a drain of its senior staff, which gave rival Christie’s a pronounced advantage. In January 2016, Sotheby’s made an $85 million bet that the firm Art Agency, Partners, could reverse its fortunes by bringing Amy Cappellazzo, the former Christie’s rainmaker, into the fold.
Cappellazzo’s protégé, Bernard Lagrange, a cataloguer and Princeton grad, has since become a key player at Sotheby’s, assisting Art Agency, Partners, in sourcing consignments for auction, and lining up clients to bid on those consignments at the evening sales. In May, the 27-year-old Lagrange was on the phone at Sotheby’s post-war and contemporary evening sale with the client fielding the winning $27 million bid on ’s Flesh and Spirit (1982–83).
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
Recently, I have spent a lot of time thinking about and looking at . I think he is a giant and one of the greatest artists of our time. Each encounter with his work has left me with a deep-seated primal impression that is difficult to verbalize. I have no doubt him being undervalued will not last very long.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
I don’t know if this will happen in the next 10 years, but it is going to be very interesting to see what happens when Larry Gagosian decides to hang up his boots. His vision and empire have played a significant role in the popularity that modern and contemporary art has today.
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Hauser & Wirth recently announced that the gallery would open its ninth space in St. Moritz, the tony Swiss ski town where gallery founder Iwan Wirth organized some of his first exhibitions. But the real expansion is happening in Asia: Over the last year, Hauser & Wirth opened a gallery in the H Queens building in Hong Kong, set up offices in Shanghai and Beijing, and took on worldwide representation of , who became the most expensive living Chinese artist when his Last Supper (2001) sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong for $23.3 million in 2013.
Director Fiona Römer, 31, is working closely with the artist on the three-city Zeng Fanzhi extravaganza to be held in the galleries in Zurich, London, and Hong Kong. Even from her perch in Zurich, Römer has been integral in the gallery’s forward guard, building up its collector base in China at fairs like West Bund, ahead of the bigger Hong Kong push. As she told Artsy at the West Bund Art & Design fair last year, “You have to take the region seriously.”
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Art is my passion and I made it my profession. Working in different cultures and acting within them continues to fascinate me. I have lived in London, New York, [and] Berlin; I travel extensively for work, and have been part of the gallery’s expansion in China from the beginning. It’s always interesting to meet people with this shared passion around the world, and everyone has a personal success story to share.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
I believe the art market will expand into other regions. More people will have access to art and art education, which will lead to a cultural awareness and an expansion of the art market. At the same time, people are looking for new ways of experiencing art, and are on a quest for inspiration. My travels to places like Naoshima, Teshima, or Marfa have been enriching, and the creation of such cultural concepts will keep evolving.
Rashid Johnson, Untitled Escape Collage, 2018. Courtesy of Christie’s.
In 2013, Vivian Brodie was involved with the nonprofit collective Young & Starving (Y&S), an incubator that supported young artists struggling to become noticed. Christie’s asked Y&S to collaborate on a sale where the buyer’s premium would be waived, and all the funds would go straight to the artists. Five years later, the 28-year-old Brodie is now running all of Christie’s mid-season contemporary auctions, including the house’s biannual “Post-War to Present” sales, which present works by emerging artists, many of whom are getting their first exposure on the rostrum.
Brodie is also tasked with monitoring the potential of artists who are fresh to the secondary market, but might have the potential to become big names in Christie’s day sales and, eventually, evening sales. And she’s still committed to philanthropy. At the most recent “Post-War to Present” sale, which went down in New York on September 27th and reaped $20.1 million, 20 lots were donated by the artists to benefit the Global Wildlife Conservation.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
I have a long list that is constantly evolving as I see more artwork and discover new artists. My top few undervalued artists this week are , , , , , and
What’s your favorite part of your job?
When I started at Christie’s 10 years ago, I was most impressed with the physical action. The energy in the room was exhilarating, and that first auction’s excitement was what fueled the beginning of my career. Now, my favorite parts of my job are the artworks I get to handle. Paintings always reveal so much more in person than they do in the initial JPEG, and I have never been disappointed to see a work in the flesh.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
The biggest change in the marketplace in the next 10 years is the scope of the market. More people are creating art, studying art, going to see art, and buying art than ever before. We see new buyers in every sale, and most especially in our online sales, showing that more people are entering the marketplace each season.
You can’t credit Almine Ruiz-Picasso with predicting Brexit, but she did pick the right time to add a New York space to the Almine Rech Gallery stable. Just as the new outpost opened on the Upper East Side in October 2016, the British pound and other European currencies came crashing down due to Brexit, and having a business in New York seemed like a great idea. She made another key decision when she hired her son Paul de Froment as the space’s director, who was living in New York following a stint as a private equities trader in Paris.
In the two years since the inaugural New York show, which featured work by and (Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Almine’s husband, is the artist’s grandson), de Froment has overseen a program that’s oscillated between blockbuster displays of work by famous artists like and showcases for young artists, such as market darling . By focusing on programming that brings both bold names and artists who usually wouldn’t show on the Upper East Side, he’s turned the gallery into a must-see amidst a host of other great Upper East Side galleries.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
I can think of the artist in our current New York exhibition, , and also of the German painter , of which we’ll have a piece in our London show curated by Norman Rosenthal.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Studio visits, because it’s a fantastic experience to be able to spend time and talk with an artist in the middle of his creative environment.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
It’s already started, as shows are becoming harder to produce cost-effectively due to shipping and insurance. More and more alternate options to show and sell art are developed, such as online viewing rooms, online auction houses, etc. Interactive museum shows with little or none of the actual art will start appearing, as well. This might translate into people buying more art from computer images, and thus being less adventurous in who and what they collect. Art that is JPEG-friendly will also sell better.
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Jose Martos has had galleries from St. Barts and SoHo to the North Fork of Long Island and the outskirts of Chelsea, and his Shoot the Lobster project space has popped up in Marseilles, Vietnam, and Iowa. But his most elegant gallery yet may be the one he opened in May 2017 in Chinatown, on a block of lower Elizabeth Street blissfully untouched by matcha bars and SoulCycle.
The first show was curated by director Ebony L. Haynes, and it was a stunner: “Invisible Man,” a group show inspired by Ralph Ellison’s classic book, commented on the black body in lush, subtle ways. hung a water fountain from the ceiling and set glasses of water on small pedestals, and flipped a sofa on its side and placed a shimmering sequin dress atop it. “The works of these artists just so happen to execute an idea that I had of representing an absent body,” she said at the time. “[They] speak to the lack of visibility of artists of color in the gallery space.”
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
In 10 years from now, artworks will be seen less as units of investment, and any attempts—hopefully few to none—at international art market regulation will be morally sound. The consideration will be equal across all types of galleries and artists, and not focus on the slow-shifting “Top 5s.” And the recent interest and value placed on works by artists of color will have proved to not be just a glitch in the matrix. But that could be a bit of a far stretch.
Marlborough Fine Art has had a presence in London since the 1940s and on New York’s 57th Street since the 1960s. In 2007, the gallery opened another space, Marlborough Chelsea, on West 25th Street, and in 2012, that space was taken over by Max Levai, the 24-year-old son of director Pierre Levai. Immediately, he started hosting some of the more adventurous programming in the city, from the intricate worlds of and to the large jacuzzi sculptures of . In 2017, Levai announced that the gallery would be taking over the second floor of a building in London’s Mayfair and, together with the New York space, would be rebranded as Marlborough Contemporary.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
Take a look at the work of German painter . His historic importance is undeniable and his new work is some of the most fresh and successful painting I have seen in a while.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
Hopefully, new adventurous clients will sustain what is already in place, and will set the standard for living [with] and collecting art that is more ambitious than the generation of collectors that precedes them.
Antony Gormley, State III, 2012. Courtesy of Phillips.
KAWS, Untitled (MBFF9), 2014. Courtesy of Phillips.
As part of CEO Ed Dolman’s global redesign, Phillips began to challenge more established rivals in 2014 by moving into posh new London headquarters on Berkeley Square—a 73,000-square-foot building on one of Mayfair’s most attractive blocks. Key to Dolman’s plan for London domination has been to corner the market on younger artists by being the first place to auction them. Simon Tovey, 30, oversees the London-based “New Now” sales, and helps Phillips find the new superstars. Phillips was, after all, the first house to bring and to auction.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
I recently went to a small and wonderfully curated show in London that surveys the female , including artists such as , , , , , and , all of whom exhibited in the seminal Ninth Street exhibition in 1951. I think there is such a fascinating narrative around these groundbreaking women and their pivotal impact on 20th-century art in America. Artists such as Mitchell and Frankenthaler are already commanding high prices; however, I am excited to see how these works will lead others some of the lesser-known names of the same era. Similarly, I am excited to read Mary Gabriel’s forthcoming book Ninth Street Women,which will also tell the story around five of these influential female artists.
While at Jack Hanley Gallery, Brandy Carstens brought the young artist into the gallery’s fold and oversaw its 30th anniversary show in 2017, which featured many artists that the gallery had nurtured, including , , and —the latter of whom served as the receptionist for the opening.
In mid-2017, Carstens joined Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, one of Chelsea’s more consistently experimental blue-chippers, which represents artists such as and opened an outpost in Los Angeles this year. Most recently, the 33-year-old Carstens organized the gallery’s summer group show, which included works by , , and Jaeger.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
and .
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Beyond the extraordinary artists at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, our audience brings a range of perspectives and experiences to the work. It’s compelling to see exhibitions through their eyes.
Installation view of “The Tissue of Memory” at Simon Lee, New York, 2018. Courtesy of Simon Lee.
London-based dealer Simon Lee leased a space in an Upper East Side townhouse in 2014 to use as a viewing room—he wanted a New York gallery, but with a family in London and a gallery in Hong Kong, he wasn’t sure he had the bandwidth to operate it. Enter James Michael Shaeffer, a former director at the dealer James Fuentes’s Lower East Side space, who became the director of Lee’s New York gallery in January 2017.
Shaeffer has helped build out Simon Lee’s New York space from an appointment-only viewing room into a full gallery with regular shows. He’s also helped to re-contextualize the artists Lee was showing by putting them in conversation with younger artists whom Shaeffer, now 29, had been showing downtown. The current group show up at Simon Lee, “The Tissue of Memory,” juxtaposes two lush works on paper with a installation featuring a glass facial mask—a witty and stirring match.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Showcasing younger artists at the beginning of their careers with more established, canonized artists. It excites me to contextualize artworks like that for the first time.
Mitchell-Innes & Nash became a Chelsea powerhouse because of the twin skills of the gallery’s two married founders: David Nash is the former global head of the department at Sotheby’s worldwide, and Lucy Mitchell-Innes is the former global head of the post-war and contemporary department at Sotheby’s.
This deep understanding of two fields allows the gallery to operate on the primary market, representing the risk-taking black artist , and on the secondary market, by staging at the gallery surveys of work by and —and bringing a $25 million painting to the Art Basel fair in Basel, Switzerland. To forge connections with artists of the next generation, the gallery relies on a young staff led by the 30-year-old Josie Nash. She’s been the driving force behind several recent additions to the gallery’s roster, including the estate of Kiki Kogelnik, which the gallery singed in June 2018.
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
. I traveled to Texas last week for the opening of her wonderful exhibition at The Contemporary Austin, entitled “Relational Aesthetics.” She’s exhibited at prestigious museums all over the world and influenced a whole generation of artists.
At just 25, Max Moore started out downstairs in Sotheby’s cataloging department. Now, Moore heads up the day sales, a thrilling place to be when a successful sale can anoint new market stars. Moore was steeped in contemporary art growing up—his father is the revered collector Frank Moore, who recently retired his practice as a brain surgeon and took a job at Gagosian, where he could play an important role in the gallery's future.
What’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in the market in the next 10 years?
Social media has had a profound impact on the art market through its dissemination of information at a global scale. I can’t predict the exact outcome, but I have no doubt that new advancements in technology will continue to play a significant role in shaping the art and the market over the next 10 years.
Installation view of “UN(COVERED): MIRÓ I HAMMONS” at Nahmad Contempoary, 2018. Courtesy of the gallery.
Though Joe Nahmad comes from one of the biggest collecting families in the world, he was determined to make a name for himself when, in 2013, he opened a space at 980 Madison, a building that also hosts the flagship outpost of Larry Gagosian’s empire. Just 23 years old at the time, he used the deep connections forged by him and his family during their decades of collecting to source heavyweight works, while also keeping room in the calendar to stage shows of then-market darlings the , as well as off-the-cuff experiments—like when he paired and in a single room, the glow of Flavin’s bulbs bouncing off Israel’s giant sunglasses lens. Last month’s five-year anniversary show included iconic examples of works by famous artists: a joke painting, a “U” canvas, a text work, and even a yellow-and-orange .
Which artist’s market do you think is undervalued?
The European post-war abstract painters such as and are still undervalued. Also, the conceptual minimalist artist . Even for artists who have a heated market, there are lesser-known bodies of work within their oeuvre that are largely under-appreciated. For example, ’s Celotex and Styrofoam works, Richard Prince’s “Fashion” photographs, ’s “Grey” paintings—each of which have been the focus of an exhibition at Nahmad Contemporary. Also, ’s Xerox paintings, which the gallery will present in our May 2019 exhibition.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Hanging an exhibition after months and months of research and conceptualization is always rewarding. I also love connecting diverse artists in surprising ways. Our current exhibition, for instance, presents ’s “Sobreteixims” alongside ’s tarp-cloaked canvases.
Nate Freeman
Video header: Footage from Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction, New York, NY, May 18, 2017. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Corrections: A previous version of this article miscalculated the number of online-only auctions held by Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips. Joe Nahmad is not Nahmad Contemporary’s director; he is the owner. Lauren Kelly is 35, not 25. The text has been updated accordingly to present the most accurate information.
