Larry Gagosian is the subject of a lengthy profile in the Wall Street Journal this week, which profiles both his impressive empire of galleries worldwide, and his views on the market he wields such influence over. “I don’t think the art market is for everybody. Yeah, of course, we have a global gallery. But we’re like the one-tenth of the one-tenth of the one-tenth. OK?” he says. “Not just who’s buying but who’s really seriously engaged with art. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. I believe in the popularizing of art. But when you get right down to it, it’s a bit of an elitist world. Not just economically elitist—how many people read poetry?” (more…)

Maya Widmaier Picasso has spoken out on the dispute over the sale of a bust created by her father, Pablo Picasso, saying she sold the work herself to Larry Gagosian and dismissing other claims to the piece as “baseless.”  The dispute seems to stem from a disagreement between Widmaier Picasso’s daughter and son, who respectively sought to sell the work to Gagosian and the Qatari Royal Family.  Widmaier Picasso says she decided to side with her daughter, who she said  “cannot be faulted for reminding her mother of the sculpture’s true value.” (more…)

Dealer Larry Gagosian and the Qatar royal family have reached a temporary agreement on the ownership of the Picasso bust currently in dispute.  The work will be held at Gagosian Gallery until its the conflict is adjudicated.  The disagreement around the work revolves around multiple sales of the piece, with both the royal family and Gagosian claiming purchase of the piece from the artist’s daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso. (more…)

Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch are teaming together for an exhibition during Art Basel Miami Beach this year, bearing the title Unrealism and taking place in the historic Moore Building in the Miami Design District.  “Larry and I have wanted to do a project together for some time,” Mr. Deitch said. “Everything came together.” (more…)

Larry Gagosian has sold his Upper East Side Carriage House to SculptureCenter chair Sascha Bauer for $18 million, the NY Daily News reports.  Gagosian bought the property in 1988 from Schlumberger heiress Christophe de Menil. (more…)

Cecily Brown, Untitled (The Beautiful and the Damned) (2013), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

A collection of new and recent paintings by London-born artist Cecily Brown, is currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills through October 12. The show includes fifteen paintings primarily focusing on the the human form as an abstraction, and follows up on a previous body of work shown in at Gagosian’s New York gallery earlier this year.

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Art mogul Larry Gagosian has announced plans to open his 3rd London gallery in the city’s Mayfair neighborhood, and his 13th gallery worldwide.  The new space is set to open this fall.  “We’ve been looking for a bigger place in Mayfair, one that would resemble a Chelsea gallery,” Gagosian says. “And this has great space with over 15-foot-high ceilings.” (more…)

Dealer Larry Gagosian and collector Jan Cowles have reportedly settled their disagreement over the 1964 Roy Lichtenstein work Girl in Mirror.  The news was broken by Wall Street Journal reporter Kelly Crow on her Twitter account this morning.  A full report has yet to be released, so the details of the settlement has yet to be released. (more…)

Yayoi Kusama announced this week that she is ending her partnership with the Gagosian Gallery, and joining David Zwirner Gallery’s already formidable roster of artists.  The news comes after several months of speculation and rumors that Kusama would be breaking her ties with Gagosian. (more…)

Larry Gagosian responded yesterday to a lawsuit by client Ronald O Perelman over money lost in the exchange of 11 works valued at over $45 million, including an unfinished Jeff Koons sculpture, a Cy Twombly painting, and a sculpture by Richard Serra. In a series of papers filed this week in New York State Supreme Court, Gagosian claims that he had lost money in the transactions, and that Perelman’s claims were “frivolous.” (more…)

Art dealer Larry Gagosian’s lawsuit against former client Charles Cowles incurred a setback by a U.S. District Court judge.  The 44-page court finding, issued last week, has illustrated issues with the nature of the sales relationship between Cowles and Gagosian which may call into question whether or not Gagosian officially represented Cowles in the sale of Mark Tansey’s “The Innocent Eye Test.”  “(We) believe that the potential strength of Mr. Cowles’s legal defenses outweighs the relatively moderate level of fault,” wrote judge Michael Dolinger.

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Steven Murphy, CEO of Christie’s, ranked No. 1 on Art + Auction’s Power 100 list, (which will be released today at a party at the Haven Lounge in Miami). Murphy has built the auction house’s online functionality and attracted new clients. Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Marc Glimcher, Christian Deydier, Eli Broad and Emmanuel Perrotin also ranked in the top ten.
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Nate Lowman

All photos by E. Damenia for ArtObserved

This past Sunday, The Brant Foundation Art Study Center held the opening party and preview for Nate Lowman: I wanted to be an artist but all I got was this lousy career. The exhibition features recent and new work including paintings, collage and sculpture. Also on view on the foundation lawn was the actual White Ford Bronco from OJ Simpson’s June 17, 1994 car chase, and Gang Gang Dance performed. Artists such as Scott Campbell, Adam McEwen, Richard Prince, Kalup Linzy, Kaws and Aaron Young were in attendance, as well as dealers, collectors and museum directors such as Eli Broad, Jeffrey Deitch, Larry Gagosian and the Mugrabi family.

Gang Gang Dance performing

The OJ Simpson White Bronco brought in for the event from Los Angeles

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In a deposition this week, Larry Gagosian stated that he frequently represents both parties – buyer and consignor – in sale transactions that he brokers. The case brought forth by Jan Cowles, who sued Gagosian for selling a work she owned without her consent, involves a painting that sold for below market value at $2 million, and whereby Gagosian earned an unusually high relative fee of $1 million.  Mrs. Cowles’s lawyer, David Baum, claims that representation of both parties without disclosure is “blatantly unlawful under New York agency law.” The gallery asserted that its “practices are fully consistent with both the law and the standards in the art world.” (more…)

A woman ranked #1 on Art Review’s Power 100 of 2012 for the first time ever. The Bulgarian curator, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, topped the list for her dOCUMENTA (13) exhibition in Kassel.  After 100 days of being open to the public, the fair received a total number of 887,000 visitors. The Power 100 is based on “a combination of influence over the production of art internationally, sheer financial clout … and activity in the previous 12 months”. Numbers, 2, 3, 4 and 5, are Larry Gagosian, Ai Weiwei, Iwan Wirth and David Zwirner, respectively. (more…)

Larry Gagosian will partner with the owners of Sant Ambroeus cafe and restaurant, Gherardo Guarducci and Dimitri Paul, to open his new restaurant at 976 Madison Avenue. They have applied for a full liquor license and are reportedly planning a fall 2012 opening. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal interviews Larry Gagosian as Gagosian Gallery prepares to open a 17,760-square-foot space near Le Bourget airport in northern Paris, designed by Jean Nouvel.  He discusses the gallery’s expansion and the state of the market: “I don’t feel like we’re in a bubble, but the nature of bubbles is that you never see them.” (more…)

Images: Larry Gagosian via Phaidon and Ronald Perelman via Forbes

Larry Gagosian and Ronald Perelman filed lawsuits against each other last week in the New York State Supreme Court. The two have had a business relationship and friendship for over twenty years.  The following is a further detailed account of the two cases.

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‬Larry Gagosian is set to host a major sculture exhibition in Rio de Janiero to coincide with the ArtRio Fair. Gagosian’s eponymous gallery will have a separate booth at the fair. Both sites will be designed by Claudia Moreira Salles, the Brazilian designer. The fair will run from September 12-16.

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‬Larry Gagosian plans his 12th gallery worldwide and second in the Paris area, to be designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. “All the artists I talked to are very enthusiastic about it. It’s only about 20 minutes from the heart of the city,” says Mr. Gagosian.

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‬Larry Gagosian enlists architect Annabelle Selldorf to help open a café including new gallery space at his flagship Gagosian Gallery on 980 Madison Avenue.

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‪‬In anticipation of Damien Hirst’s upcoming Tate retrospective next month, writer Hari Krunzu lobs invectives at the artist in an editorial in the Guardian: “This isn’t just art that exists in the market, or is ‘about’ the market. This is art that is the market – a series of gestures that are made wholly or primarily to capture and embody financial value,” “Don’t just make money, be money: weightless, ubiquitous, infinitely circulating, immortal.” [AO Newslink]

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‪Lawsuit filed against Larry Gagosian for $14 million by 93-year-old collector Jan Cowles, whose daughter alledgedly sold works to Gagosian without Jan’s knowledge from 2008-2009, including a Lichtenstein allegedly damaged then resold. Another Cowles’-owned work,”Innocent Eye Test” by Mark Tansey, was previously embroiled in $4 million ownership suit [AO Newslink]

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Larry Gagosian buys $36.5 million , 20,000 sf, 50-foot wide Harkness Mansion at 4 E.75th St.; roughly 200 meters from his Upper East Side Gallery on Madison Avenue [AO Newslink]

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