In a move all about location, location, location, the Chelsea dealer Christophe Van de Weghe nabbed the second-floor space at 1018 Madison Avenue, between 78th and 79th streets in New York, that had been recently vacated by fellow gallerist Per Skarstedt. Van de Weghe staged his inaugural show there in November, offering seven Jean-Michel Basquiat works for between $1.9 million and $7.5 million.
It was akin to going home again for Van de Weghe, who specializes in secondary-market sales of such artists as Calder, Picasso, Stella and Warhol. In 2000, after a seven-year stint at the nearby Gagosian Gallery, the Belgian-born dealer opened his first gallery at 42 East 76th Street. Although he stayed there only a year before buying a ground-floor premises on West 23rd Street, his attachment to the Upper East Side didn’t flag.
"It’s a real destination building," says Van de Weghe, who shares his new address with Richard Gray Gallery and Mitchell-Innes & Nash. "I felt that in this environment I want to be on the Upper East Side, where most of my clients live."
Van de Weghe intends to stage three or four exhibitions a year there, and he’s keeping the Chelsea venue for large-scale projects like the current exhibition of Frank Stella paintings from the 1960s.
"Uptown Bound" originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's February 2009 Table of Contents.
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