The Orange Balloon Dog

by Don Thompson

  The gallery has presented the first exhibitions in London and Europe of conceptual and minimalist artists Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Graham, Robert Mangold and On Kawara among others. In the 1980s, Lisson introduced British sculptors Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Shirazeh Houshiary and Anish Kapoor. When many London galleries in the 1990s featured the hot yBas—Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili and others, Lisson stayed with the artists it had. In 2016 Lisson represented fiftyone artists, including Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, Tatsuo Miyajima, Jonathan Monk and Ryan Gander. (See photo insert for another Gander work, here.)

  Lisson sees its role as an international gallery in London rather than a London gallery showing international artists. The concept from the beginning was to take on young artists and develop them. Half the artists would be foreign, half British, with a bias toward the interesting sculpture being done in the US and UK.

  From 1984 to 1999, Lisson artists accounted for fourteen Turner Prize nominations. The prize, named after English painter JMW Turner, is presented annually to a British artist under the age of fifty (originally under forty). It is the United Kingdom’s most sought-after art prize. Five Lisson artists have won: Richard Deacon (1987), Tony Cragg (1988), Anish Kapoor (1991), Grenville Davey (1992) and Douglas Gordon (1996).

  Forty-eight years after opening on Bell Street, Logsdail made the decision to expand to New York. In May 2016 the gallery opened an 8,500-square-foot gallery in the Chelsea area. The space at 504 West 24th Street is in a new building located under the High Line, between 23rd and 24th Streets. The choice of a Chelsea location represents a diametrically opposite philosophy to the London site. Chelsea is a short walk from über galleries Gagosian, Luhring Augustine, Andrea Rosen, Mary Boone, Matthew Marks and Barbara Gladstone, and close to the new Whitney museum.

  Lisson’s other non-London venture was opening a small, 1,500-square-foot gallery in Milan in 2011. The Milan space is used to test-market new artists or new styles of painting or sculpture by existing ones. The building is adjacent to the Castellini family’s Palazzo degli Atellani, the gardens of which are used for Lisson’s sculpture exhibitions.

  Why after such a long period did Lisson expand? There are several answers; each illustrates something about today’s contemporary art market. With fifty-one artists, and with two London locations plus Milan, the limit of six to eight shows a year at each made it difficult to provide each artist a solo show every twenty-four to thirty months. A space in a new city allows the gallery to take on more artists and to better show current ones.

  New York is still by far the centre of the contemporary art collecting world because of the concentration of artists, dealers, auction houses, wealthy collectors and art publications. New York galleries are based on the sale of American and international art to the world. London by comparison is not a hotbed of contemporary artists, nor does it have a large pool of affluent collectors who are permanent residents. In September 2016, only sixteen of the fifty-one Lisson artists were resident in the UK. Over the life of the gallery, 90 percent of sales have been to non-British collectors. Just over 50 percent of art purchased at Lisson’s London galleries goes to the United States. The gallery knows where the art ends up, because it ships directly in order that the purchaser not become liable for UK taxes.

  Another reason for the new location is to expand opportunities for those current artists without New York representation. Equally important is to keep gallery artists from being poached by dealers offering greater international exposure. Successful artists are seduced by the reach and pricing power of multinational galleries. Artists want their work to have wide exposure; some will switch galleries to get it. Dealers say this concern is behind most international expansions by galleries. Emmanuel Perrotin said his principal reason for expanding from Paris to New York in 2013 was defensive. He had artists who wanted to be seen in New York; if he didn’t show them they would switch dealers. “We are driven above all by a fear of losing artists if we don’t develop at their rhythm.”35

  Lisson has lost only three or four artists to poaching over several decades, but the gallery is always vulnerable. It does not have formal contracts with artists, only a letter of agreement. Logsdail says he would not try to restrict an artist who insisted on moving, and does not think that a contract could be enforced in any case.

  Fifteen Lisson artists had dealer representation in New York at the time of the expansion—this includes performance artist Marina Abramović with Sean Kelly, Anish Kapoor with Barbara Gladstone, Ai Weiwei with Mary Boone, and Lawrence Weiner with Marian Goodman. It is always interesting to see how artists end up being represented after an expansion. Usually expanding dealers say they will respect the relationship an artist already has with a foreign gallery, that the new location will exhibit other gallery artists. Logsdail said that when he announced the New York move, artists asked him, “So when are you going to ask me if I will switch to you in New York?” He said he was not going to ask; if the artist wanted to move to Lisson, the artist would ask him. When I asked a prominent art writer about this approach, she responded, “Logsdail may be too nice a person to succeed in New York.”

  In practice there are lots of examples of switching and a few of dual representation. Michael Werner opened his new gallery in London with a show of paintings by Peter Doig. Doig was at the time represented in London by Victoria Miro, and remained so after the Werner show. It is not common for artists to show at different galleries in the same city, but it does happen. Gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin is one of the few dealers to state openly that he is willing to consider an “open marriage” with artists—that is, multiple partners. Perrotin warns of the difficulties, for example which gallery gets first choice of artworks for a show or an art fair.

  A common secondary motive for foreign gallery expansion is to service one or more hot artists. When an artist’s work is successfully promoted, the economists’ concept of supply and demand is reversed. Artists who are shown in multiple cities and at successive art fairs attract more publicity, higher demand and better prices. Each gallery show, each appearance at an art fair and each feature article in an art magazine adds to demand. The reassurance of the dealer brand is reinforced by the enthusiasm of collectors in multiple countries.

  Multiple gallery locations are thought to help in securing admission to top art fairs and in securing a good booth location within the fair. Lisson does not have to worry about admission to art fairs. In 2016, The Art Newspaper ranked the twenty most active galleries by attendance at what the newspaper deemed the forty “top international art fairs” over a five-year period. Lisson was sixth on the list (with 50 appearances, an average of 10 a year), ahead of Pace (48 over the five years) and Gagosian (40), and just behind Marlborough (58) and Zwirner (56). But the number of fairs attended and placement at each fair is always a concern with a gallery. Having your booth in a cluster with Gagosian, Pace and Zwirner at Basel Miami or Frieze New York is a signal of your status and the prestige of your artists. Artists understand the desirability of working with a dealer who secures these locations.

  For a branded dealer able to show in-demand artists, the financial risk from expansion may be minimal. When art sells for $50,000 and up, a few sold-out shows can cover the cost of leasing and refitting a new gallery. Larry Gagosian once used the throwaway line that his lavishly expensive gallery expansion in Athens would break even with his first four sold-out shows.

  The real downside of foreign expansion may be wear and tear on the gallery owner. For many dealers the owner is the brand—think Gagosian or Zwirner or Goodman. That is also true with Nicholas Logsdail in London. With expansion, the dealer spends less time at the home gallery, and artists and collectors get less face time. In the mid-1990s, Marc Glimcher—then president of New York’s PaceWildenstein—opened galleries in Los Angeles and London. He closed both a few years later because they and the home gallery suffered without his presence. There is a major exception to this wear-and-tear rule. That exception is G
agosian. Glimcher said that “Larry has a special talent; clients don’t expect to see him, they are happy just getting the aura of Larry.”

  For Lisson the absentee problem was not a concern. The face of the New York operation is Logsdail’s son Alex, who headed Lisson’s New York representative office from the time it opened in 2012.

  The art cultures of London and New York are very different. Angela Choon, senior partner at David Zwirner, has been quoted as saying the culture of buying art in New York is “People come, they look and ask how much it is, negotiate, and it’s done.” In London, by comparison, “People don’t rush to the opening. They want to take their time, look at the work … understand it and really have a dialogue about it.”

  There are differences in what is sold. London has historically been seen as a market that preferred pictures of horses, hunting dogs and deceased family members. For contemporary art, London is a market for primary work rather than secondary art. Lisson’s market is 85-percent primary art and 15-percent secondary, the latter of artists both currently and previously represented by the gallery. The standard for New York galleries is 50-percent primary, 50-percent secondary, with the latter segment being by far the more profitable.

  Another difference brings into question how receptive New York collectors will be to some of Lisson’s European and other international artists. The Irish-American painter Sean Scully was quoted in the New York Times (in the context of what museums show) as saying that global art “plays in London; it doesn’t play in America.” America was made “in an entirely different way,” he said. “It hasn’t colonized two-thirds of the globe, like the British did.”36

  A failed auction lot in November 2015 suggested another interpretation of what art is acceptable. Christie’s New York postwar and contemporary sale offered Naked Portrait on a Red Sofa (1989–91), British painter Lucian Freud’s sexually suggestive reclining nude image of his daughter Bella, which was burdened with a very high estimate of $20 million to $30 million. There were only two bids, nothing close to the reserve price, which was thought to be $16 million—even though the world-record price for Freud had been set in New York. The consensus after the auction was that it would have been better to offer Naked Portrait in London, because a British auction room would not have the “puritan and repressed American mores” that were triggered by the incestuous implication of the painting.37

  Lisson’s move to New York in 2016 came a few years after a rush by New York galleries to expand to London. David Zwirner has a 10,000-square-foot gallery in Mayfair, Pace has a 9,000-square-foot space behind the Royal Academy in Burlington Gardens, and Gagosian added a third space to his existing galleries on Britannia Street and in Mayfair. These and other expansions to London focus on visitors and on the city’s ultra-rich, wealthy and minimally taxed non-domiciled Russian, Asian and Middle Eastern collectors. Nearly a third of London’s six thousand residents with a net worth of more than $30 million (£18.5 million) are non-doms, including collectors Roman Abramovich (net worth £6.2 billion to $7.5 billion) and Victor Pinchuk (£1.2 billion to $1.4 billion).

  A final potential benefit of multiple locations is pricing. Gagosian can charge a price premium, even on entry-level art (which his gallery only occasionally handles), because in making a purchase, the collector acquires both the art and the Gagosian brand. That is also true of other über galleries, although perhaps to a lesser extent.

  Lisson’s opening a new space in New York can be expected to improve the overall brand and image of the gallery such that the total return to a collector is greater. Can the value of the Lisson brand move to somewhere between Lisson now and Gagosian now? Will moving to New York improve how the gallery’s current collectors feel about their past purchases? Will they now be more likely to say, “I bought this at Lisson?” Will auction houses be more likely to list Lisson in the provenance of the work being auctioned?

  Economic theorists would say that Lisson’s expanding to the centre of the New York art world should increase consumer satisfaction and thus allow higher prices. A non-collector reading this will think the idea crazy; why would a post-expansion art purchase now provide greater satisfaction, or come at a higher price? The high-end collector understands the concept perfectly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE ART ADVISER

  “You don’t just buy your art, you buy your advisor and the advisor tells you what to do.”

  —Adam Lindemann, collector and dealer38

  “When I think about private sales, I think about matchmaking–it’s literally about arranging love.”

  —Amy Cappellazzo, former art agent39

  AMY CAPPELLAZZO WAS FOR THIRTEEN YEARS CHRISTIE’S CO-HEAD OF POST-war and contemporary art, and a top dealmaker. In 2014 she left the auction house to become an art adviser. She thought it worthwhile to step back from the pinnacle of the art world for an undefined profession already populated with more people offering consulting services than the market seemed able or willing to support.

  She wanted to be more than an adviser. “Auction houses can never fully represent a collector’s interests,” Cappellazzo was quoted in Vogue as saying.40 She continued, “What I want to do is build the best possible full-service business—not just one that makes the most money but one that can look after you the way Bessemer Trust or Guaranty Trust looked after your family.”41

  Cappellazzo wanted to perform some of the same functions as a sports agent: negotiate contracts and product endorsements, place art, market the artist and create a client brand. She would help manage public relations, including websites and Twitter accounts; arrange finances and retirement planning; and file taxes in the multiple jurisdictions in which artists work. Perhaps most important, she would communicate and negotiate issues of importance with dealers, collectors and museums, as sports agents do with team owners, managers and coaches.

  The professional sports agent analogy is apt. Think about artists rather than of athletes in any description of the role of the sports agent and ask, “Would this model find acceptance in the art world, at least with artists?” It would accomplish one thing it does for athletes: free them to focus on what they do best. But if an agent could arrange shows and art fair appearances and negotiate private deals, would an established artist need a dealer? Could Cappellazzo persuade artists to try a new arrangement, to change the structure of the art market?

  She graduated from New York University in 1989 and did graduate work in architecture at Pratt Institute. In 1995 she moved to Miami to work as a curator at Miami Dade College Museum of Art + Design. She wrote art criticism, then briefly became a traditional art adviser. She worked with Don and Mera Rubell in setting up their art foundation, then had a role in starting the Basel Miami art fair.

  In the late 1990s, Marc Porter of Christie’s made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. From 2001 she and Brett Gorvy ran the postwar and contemporary art department at the auction house. She became the public face of Christie’s contemporary art. Her high-profile clients included Daniel Loeb, Dakis Joannou and Marc Jacobs. In a 2006 interview she offered the notorious “town bully” observation about her work at Christie’s: “We’re the big-box retailer putting the mom-and-pops out of business.”42 In a later interview she said she worked directly with 666 clients. To some that sequence of sixes would seem ominous, but if she included herself (she is a collector), the figure would be 667.

  In 2011 she withdrew from co-managing the department with Gorvy to focus on finding new sources of revenue. She negotiated Christie’s 2012 partnering with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to sell the foundation’s remaining inventory of Warhol art. “We basically said, ‘We’re now representing artists’ estates.’”43 Christie’s then offered most of the Warhols online.

  After resigning from Christie’s in 2014 she joined adviser Allan Schwartzman in Art Agency, Partners. Schwartzman was responsible for Bernardo Paz’s Brazilian art park Inhotim, where he serves as creative director. He also assembled major collections
for Howard Rachofsky, Nicolas Berggruen and Penny Pritzker. This chapter could as readily have begun with Schwartzman’s role as an agent—except that the vision of a dramatically different model was first articulated by Cappellazzo.

  Cappellazzo on occasion sounds like an investment banker. She cited Robert Rauschenberg as a profit possibility: “In the business world, you’d say Rauschenberg is an arbitrage buy right now, because [his] prices are so much lower than the potential value. His record at auction is about $14.5 million. Isn’t that scandalous?”44

  Many advisers have more traditional practices. One is Annelien Bruins at Tang Art Advisory in New York, Miami, London and Hong Kong. She consults on transactions and manages collections. “We save our clients time and money by doing the legwork for them,” she has said, adding, “We keep up to date with artists, we source works for our clients, we perform price research and due diligence, we negotiate the transactions, and we have the works installed in our clients’ homes.”45 That is a pretty good description of what most art advisers do now. Tang’s fee structure is fairly traditional; for mid-level transactions, the firm charges a commission rate of 10 percent. For asset management there is a negotiated fee.

  Another traditional adviser is Sandy Heller of Sanford Heller Art Advisory in New York. He is known for his work with Steven Cohen, Roman Abramovich and David Ganek. In 2006 he advised Cohen to purchase (from David Geffen) Willem de Kooning’s Woman III (1952–53), for the then-astonishing sum of $137.5 million (see photo insert). Heller called it “the most important postwar painting that is not in a museum.”46 He also negotiated Cohen’s 2007 loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Damien Hirst’s stuffed shark, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991).