January 26, 2024

Margaret Carrigan

Guest Contributor

Annie Armstrong

Art Market Reporter

This week in the Back Room: What's the role of regional art fairs, an executive restructure at Phillips, octogenarian Joan Snyder’s booming market, and much more—all in a 7-minute read (1,747 words). 

Top of the Market

Blue-Chip Balking 

The role of the regional fair is a significant one in the commercial art ecosystem (otherwise why would Frieze and Art Basel buy them up?) but these kinds of events often seem held to unfair benchmarks of success, namely the rate of participation of blue-chip galleries. Take, for instance, the bombastic side-eye the art world served when it was revealed that exhibitor participation in the second edition of Singapore’s ART SG fair, which closed on January 21, was down by nearly 30 percent from 2023 with many blue-chip Western galleries not returning.  

Don’t get us wrong, there's a reason to take a closer look at why. But also color us unsurprised that galleries like Pace and David Zwirner are taking their pricey pieces back to more proven pastures until the mid-sized galleries do the hard work of making a new, regional event viable because they need the fair more than the international heavyweights.  

Amid the multiple regional fairs that have kicked off in the last week—ART SG as well as the 6th edition of S.E.A. Focus in Singapore, the 10th edition of FOG Design+Art in San Francisco, and the 12th edition of Artgenève in Geneva—let’s take a look at what these types of events offer rather than what they don’t. 

Less financial pressure 

Even if regional fairs still require several grand upfront between booth fees and shipping, “the truth is that there is no alternative income stream to replace the 35 percent of [annual] sales brought via art fairs,” says the Financial Times columnist Melanie Gerlis in a recent article in The Art Newspaper, citing sale figures from the 2023 UBS and Art Basel Art Market Report.  

To that end, regional fairs offer something that the blue-chip dealers like to take advantage of but mid-tier dealers rely on, and that’s an affordable booth at a fair that isn’t geared solely toward emerging artists and galleries. Often the overhead for participating in a regional fair can be anywhere from 20 to 50 percent less than that of a major international fair, and those savings could be crucial to the gallery’s bottom line in this economy. 

Room for experimentation 

In a panel discussion on alternative art fairs at the Talking Galleries 10th annual Barcelona symposium earlier this week, Silvia Ammon, director of Paris Internationale, noted that galleries “need diversity” as well as “different moments” in the year to showcase their artists, and these needs might vary from year to year. Moreover, while big fairs are valuable platforms for sales, they are not always (or maybe even rarely) a good opportunity for more experimental works or sales strategies.  

With [a little] less on the line financially, many galleries can use a regional fair to try something new, whether that be bringing work by a younger artist, attempting a more conceptual booth design, or just generally scouting out the area and its collectors for strategic planning purposes. But like with all experiments, the outcome isn’t always guaranteed, as evidenced in the “mixed” sales results out of ART SG, as reported by Artnet’s Vivienne Chow in this week’s Asia Pivot newsletter. 

Local infrastructure 

Chow also detailed that, amid the fairs that are part of Singapore Art Week, “more notable was the increasingly high-profile presence of young private institutions in Singapore.” This points to one of the most valuable but less quantifiable aspects of regional fairs: the boost they provide to the local art infrastructure. City-wide installations and institutional partnerships designed to showcase local talent can provide artists visibility for far longer than the fair since many of these remain on view for weeks, months, or even years at a time.  

Additionally, many fairs work with local museums to create acquisition funds, such as the SAM S.E.A. Focus Art Fund that will add works by Taiwanese artist Nawin Nuthong and Vietnamese-American artist Phi Phi Oanh to the Singapore Art Museum this year, or SFMOMA’s acquisition stickers seen across works at FOG bought with the help of the FOG Forum Fund. 

The Bottom Line

Don’t mistake us for art fair apologists—more isn’t always better. But for now, the imperative for galleries to participate in them remains, and regional fairs offer more flexibility and greater accessibility for mid-sized dealers, many of whom say that they’re trying to be more strategic about which fairs they participate in and when, regardless of which blue-chip dealers decide to partake.

Paint Drippings

The latest Wet Paint tracks the breakup of the art world’s favorite May-December couple, Larry Gagosian and Anna Weyant. 

Here’s what else made a mark around the industry since last Friday morning... 

Art Fairs

– The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) has appointed Mary Ryan, founder of Mary Ryan Gallery and co-founder of Ryan Lee Gallery, as chair of The Art Show committee. Ryan assumes the three-year appointment ahead of the 36th edition of the fair, which will return to New York’s Park Avenue Armory for a slightly earlier run in 2024, from October 30 to November 2. (Press release) 

– London’s Eye of the Collector fair has shifted location and dates for its fourth edition. This year’s event will run June 26-29 in the Garrison Chapel, a deconsecrated church run by the King’s Foundation on London’s Chelsea Barracks site. (Press release) 

– Nicky Dessources succeeds Jill Bokor as the executive director of Salon Art + Design. (Press release)

Auction Houses

– Following the departure of Stephen Brooks, Phillips has restrutured its leadership with the creation of a CEO’s office, which will be helmed by executive chairman and chief executive officer Edward Dolman. Amanda Lo Iacono will assume the newly created role of deputy chief executive officer. Previously the global managing director for the 20th Century & Contemporary Art department, Lo Iacono was also the lead on the 2023 launch of the auction house’s digital Dropshop platform. Cheyenne Westphal remains in her role as global chairwoman. (Press release) 

– Christie’s will offer David Hockney’s California (1965) as a highlight of the 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale on March 7. Estimated at around £16 million ($20 million), the painting stands among Hockney’s first great swimming pool paintings and has been unseen in public for more than 40 years, having been held in the same European private collection since 1968. (Press release) 

Galleries

– Gary Waterston, formerly of Gagosian, joins Pace as executive vice president of sales and operations, based in London. (Press release) 

– Lisson now represents photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and sculptor Elaine Cameron-Weir, Nikita Gale has joined Emalin, Hollis Taggart has taken on the estates of the married abstractionists Charles Seliger and Ruth Lewin, Pace now represents the estate of Paul Thek, Elsa Rensaa has joined James Fuentes, and Galerie Fabian Lang has announced representation of Xiao Guo Hui. (Press releases) 

– The Lagos-based Rele Gallery will open its third location in London’s Mayfair district on February 22 with Allesandra Olivi as the director of the outpost. (Press release) 

– Hauser & Wirth’s new street-level space in Hong Kong, created by Selldorf Architects, opened this week at 8 Queen’s Road Central. (Press release)

Institutions

– Marie-Anne McQuay has been appointed curator of the Liverpool Biennial, the 13th edition of which will take place June 7 to September 14, 2025. (Press release) 

– The 18th Istanbul Biennial has been postponed until 2025, and Iwona Blazwick has stepped down as the exhibition’s curator, following a wave of intense backlash against Blazwick’s surprise appointment in August. (Artnet News)  

– New York’s Whitney Museum has announced the 69 artists and 2 collectives that will participate in this year’s Whitney Biennial, opening March 20. Artists include Isaac Julien, Mavis Pusey, Mary Kelly, Harmony Hammond, Edward Owens, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Pippa Garner, Rose B. Simpson, Cannupa Hanska Luger, and Maja Ruznic, among others. (Artnet News) 

Legal News

– Former Artgenève director Thomas Hug is facing charges of forgery, fraud, and mismanagement following allegations that, since 2015, he has taken 1 million CHF ($1.15 million) from the Fondation Pour Les Arts Visuels, which organizes the Swiss fair. Hug allegedly used the unauthorized funding to acquire artworks, but it is not yet known whether these were intended for himself or a third party. News of the investigation broke just before the 12th edition of the fair kicked off on January 25. (Artnet News)  

– Egon Schiele’s Portrait of a Man (1917) and Girl With Black Hair (1911), both looted by the Nazis during World War II, have been returned to descendents of the original owners, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin J. Bragg. The latter work was voluntarily handed over by Oberlin College’s Allen Museum to prosecutors in Manhattan. The other was seized by Bragg’s office in September 2023 from the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. (Artnet News) 

– John Bonafede is suing New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for failing to address multiple assaults during the course of Marina Abramović’s 2010 “The Artist is Present” exhibition. The performer claims to have been assaulted on seven different occasions while participating in a restaging of Imponderabilia (1977). (Artnet News) 

“Auction houses refuse to divulge the names of consigners even after more than half a century.” 

—Art historian Gail Levin, delving into the Whitney Museum of American Art’s suspicious handling—and her own instrumentalization therein—of the Edward Hopper estate that saw many of the artist’s works that had been bequethed to the institution sold clandestinely, some of which popped up at auction as recently as May 2023. (New Criterion)

Work of the Week

Joan Snyder’s Trio 

Joan Snyder, Trio (2023). Courtesy of the artist and CANADA, New York. Photo by Adam Reich.

Date:                2023

Price:               $110,000

Selling at:        Canada Gallery

Sale date:        Through February 24

The art market’s contraction notwithstanding, collectors are clamoring for abstract paintings by 83-year-old artist Joan Snyder, whose solo show at Canada in New York is all but sold out. 

A founding member of the feminist art movement, Snyder has been painting since the 1960s, using music and nature as inspiration. Look closely, and you'll spot flower stems, leaves, rosebuds, mud, and straw amidst masses and pours of oil and acrylic paint that bring to mind the late Cy Twombly. In some works, strips of painted burlap are attached to the surface in a collage-like gesture. Snyder works on a large scale, with some paintings in the show as wide as nine feet. Prices range from $40,000 to $160,000. The triptych Trio is the only one of the 13 works in the show still available.   

There’s also renewed interest in Snyder’s historic work, which echoes similar reevaluations of female artists of earlier generations. In November, two 1970s paintings by Snyder sparked bidding wars at auction. One, titled The Stripper (1973) from the collection of the late filmmaker Ivan Reitman, fetched $478,800 at Christie’s, many times more than the presale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. The following day, another work, Celebration (1979), went for $239,400, more than four times its presale high estimate of $50,000. 

—Katya Kazakina 

Thank you for joining us for The Back Room

See you next Friday

Header Image: ART SG 2024 PLATFORM installation image, Marcos Kueh,Woven Billboards: Nenek Moyang (part of the Kenyalang Circus series), The Back Room. Courtesy of ART SG. 

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