© Keith Tyson, courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York

Keith Tyson, "Large Field Array" (detail) (2006–07)

Damien Hirst Rachel Whiteread Jake and Dinos Chapman Keith Tyson Tim Noble Sue Webster The Appendix: Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Pipilotti Rist, and Paul H-O Phillips de Pury Makes Its (Small) Mark

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“I needed an independent person to distribute my work globally rather than having a centralized gallery which fed the other dealers,” said Tyson. He compared galleries today to “the studios of 1930s Hollywood — they all want complete control of their talent and don’t want to share them with someone else.” 



Richard Wadhams, Tyson’s new agent, is a director in the accounting firm Hogbens Dunphy, which is owned by Frank Dunphy, Damien Hirst’s business manager. Wadhams also represents the artists Jake and Dinos Chapman, Rachel Whiteread, and Tim Noble and Sue Webster. The firm offers artists services ranging from accounting and tax advice to the more comprehensive “Artist First Management” program.

According to Tyson, his relationship with Wadhams will not mirror Hirst’s with Dunphy. “Damien’s model is very idiosyncratic. Just because you take an agent does not mean that you want to do a big auction or that you are trying to shave a margin out of the galleries’ profits,” Tyson said. 



He added that he hired Wadhams to help him exert more control over the fabrication of his work. “The fact that I have a lot of initial expenses means that galleries are not just show spaces but also production houses, and it made sense to have someone manage that situation,” he said.

“Galleries will promise you the world in terms of production costs, but it comes at the price of complete control. There’s a conflict of interest in having the people who retail your work being the same people that help you with production, because they will try and own it.”