Skip to main content
  • Editions
    • International
    • China
    • France
    • India
    • Australia
    • United Kingdom
    • Hong Kong
    • Canada
    • Brazil
    • Germany
    • Russia
  • Magazines
    • Art+Auction

      Modern Painters

  • Blogs
  • Videos
  • Photo Galleries
  • Blouin Art Sales Index
  • Gallery Guide
  • Art Sites
  • Boutique
  • Log in

    Not a member?

    Sign up

    Log in

    |Forgot your password?
    OR
    Sign up
  • Sign up
Home
  • Visual Arts
    • Visual Arts Home
    • Contemporary Art
    • Old Masters/Renaissance
    • Impressionism & Modern Art
    • Ancient Arts & Antiques
    • Traditional Arts
    • Museums
    • Reviews
    • Columnists
    • Features
  • Performing Arts
    • Performing Arts Home
    • Film
    • Music
    • Theater & Dance
  • Architecture & Design
    • Architecture & Design Home
    • Design
    • Architecture
  • Artists
  • ART PRICES
  • Market News
    • Market News Home
    • Art Fairs
    • Auctions
    • Collecting
    • Galleries
    • Databank
    • Art & Crime
    • ART PRICES
    • Columnists
  • Style & Society
    • Style Home
    • ART Parties/Scene
    • Fashion
    • Food & Wine
    • Jewelry & Watches
    • Autos & Boats
  • Events
  • Travel
  • Blogs
  • Videos
  • Slideshows
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Homepage RSS
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • foursquare
  • tumblr

Search form

International Edition
May 23, 2012 Last Updated: 8:01:PM EDT

Gagosian Goes Retail

Undefined

Gagosian Goes Retail

  • Email
  • Print
  • Save
  • Tweet
  • Pin It
Enlarge This Image
by Judd Tully
Published: September 22, 2009

Gallery magnate Larry Gagosian has expanded his brand once again — though this time it’s not a new gallery space he’s added but rather a retail bookseller on the ritzy corner of Madison Avenue and 77th Street in Manhattan.

The sleek, 2,500-square-foot, bi-level space, which opened to the public this past weekend, also inaugurates London import (and Gagosian artist) Damien Hirsts publishing company and retail shop Other Criteria on the lower level, making for a kind of casual art emporium with a fancy ZIP code.

The street-level portion includes a video art projection wall and a cozy reading lounge, complete with a leather sofa and decorated with a wall of nonvintage black-and-white photographs of Pop art stars back in the day by Ken Heyman and boxed as a set of 13 prints from an edition of 46, for $8,500.

The shop offers virtually all of the Gagosian-empire publications, posters, and prints, as well as limited editions by John Currin, Tom Friedman, Ellen Gallagher, Hirst, Jeff Koons, Marc Newson, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Tom Sachs, and Franz West.But the selection is certainly not limited to printed matter. The vibrant mix of stuff in the shop, a definite takeoff on Hirst’s New Bond Street and Hinde Street Other Criteria stores in London, included a set of 12 signed and numbered Hirst Superstition Plates, with a butterfly pattern in bone china, from an edition of 250 and priced at $15,000, including the presentation box. (You can also purchase them through Other Criteria in the U.K. for £10,000.)

Also among the offerings are a limited-edition print of Koons’s Monkey Train (2008) for $50,000 (from an edition of 40) and a Franz West Uncle Chair from 2008, in metal with textile bands for $6,000. A row of Koons’s puppy-shaped flower vases in white porcelain, from an edition of 3,000 and priced at $7,500, were stationed on top of a Newson marble Low Voronoi Shelf (White) (2008), priced at $375,000 in an edition of eight.

There was plenty of rubbernecking on the sidewalk on Saturday afternoon, as Madison Avenue window shoppers took advantage of the beautiful September weather and tried to make sense of a crowded window display replete with black-and-white images of a burlesque queen’s cheesecake poses by Prince juxtaposed with the slashing strokes of Franz Kline.

"What is it, honey?" asked one pencil-thin but matronly blonde bedecked with gold jewelry and two Prada shopping bags, staring at the window that included an Eames look-alike lounge chair, also by Prince.

Her companion hesitated before replying, "Oh, it’s a Gagosian shop. He’s all about image."

"Do you want to go in?"

"Not really," replied her apparently discerning friend.

The two continued their march uptown.

There was surprisingly scant traffic inside the shop on its first day of official business, though Takashi Murakami, outfitted in jeans, a white shirt, and sneakers and accompanied by a camera-toting friend, dashed in for a look around before diving back into their chauffeured van.

Asked about his impressions, the artist, whose major four-panel work, Picture of Fate: I Am But a Fisherman Who Angles in the Darkness of his Mind, just opened at Gagosian on 24th Street, restricted his comment to a contemplative giggle and a joke that he wasn’t in the market for anything.

But there really was a lot to choose from, including Sachs's hardware store accessorized Kelly Bag from 2009, priced at $12,000 apiece in an edition of five, and a brand-new Anselm Reyle Untitled wall relief made up of a steel frame and something called crinkled lacquer, from an edition of 10. (Reyle is having his first solo show with Gagosian this month, titled "Monochrome Age,” at the gallery’s behemoth West 24th Street branch.)

There were also several silkscreen prints by Andy Warhol (to whom Murakami is often compared), including Study for Flash Cover (1963) and Car Crash (1978), both "P.O.R." (price on request).

Encountered outside the shop, Manhattan artist Irwin Berman weighed in on his shopping experience. "I came to see the Twombly sculpture show upstairs," he said, "before I fell into this metastasis of the gallery. ... It’s probably all that one can expect from a decade that is so material. This shop is all about stuff: art stuff available to all of the wannabes who aren’t hedge fund managers or even cold-call brokers yet."

Catching his breath, Berman, who copped to buying two magazines from the store, added, "Beyond that, it’s all about power and aggression in the art world. But it’s also 10 steps above the typical museum store."

Though he hasn’t had a chance yet to see the new shop, new neighbor Ivan Wirth, who this week opened a new Hauser & Wirth gallery on East 69th Street with an interpretation of Allan Kaprows tire-filled environmental work Yard (1961), had praise for the Gagosian venture."I think it’s a brilliant idea," Wirth told ARTINFO as he greeted the local press at his new space on Monday, "to really find an audience for" all of those publications and editions artists do that aren’t quite right for the gallery.

Wirth admitted he had the same idea for a shop near his London gallery on Piccadilly but noted, "You’ve got to have the right real estate to do it.

"If we had that," the dealer said somewhat wistfully, "I would do something similar."

Like what you see?

Sign up for our DAILY NEWSLETTER and get our best stories delivered to your inbox.

Go to top ↑
Galleries, Galleries
Share:
  • Tweet
  • Email to a Friend

Comments

0 Comments
+ Add Yours
Log in or register to post comments
Oldest first Newest first

RELATED ARTICLES

For Sale: Open Air Art Fair on the Square Mile
ARTINFO UK's Top 3 Exhibitions Opening This Week: Anne Tallentire, Yto Barrada, Robert Holyhead
Yto Barrada, Oxalis Crown, Perdicaris Forest (detail), 2007
Cricket Legend Glenn Mcgrath Turns Gallerist in Sydney
ARTINFO UK's Top 3 Exhibitions Opening This Week: Bauhaus, Mika Rottenberg, John Summers
Sotheby’s Australia Chairman Geoffrey Smith Battles Ex-Partner Over Joint Assets

Most Popular

Viral Fashion: How the Facebook Wedding Dress Turned Priscilla Chan Into an Unlikely Style Star
The ARTINFO Bookshelf: 40 Books That Every Artist Should Own, Part II
K8 Hardy Ripped Fashion a New One at Her Riotous Whitney Biennial Runway Show
"When You Interrupt Us, You Have to Deal With Us": Murray Moss Invites You to Intrude at His Midtown Lab
Reagan's Blood, Bieber's Hair, Ally McBeal's PJs: 10 Freakish Items From PFCAuctions's Current Online Sale
The ARTINFO Bookshelf: 40 Books That Every Artist Should Own, Part I
Are We in an Anish Kapoor Bubble? Two Barbara Gladstone Shows Point to the Affirmative

Popular on Social Media

  • "I Don't Like the Term Installation": Daniel Buren on His Grand Palais-Filling Monumenta Show
  • Is Antony Gormley Plotting His Own Foundation in Norfolk?
  • Garage Sale at 11 West 53rd Street! MoMA Curator Sabine Breitwieser on Crowdsourcing Junk for Martha Rosler
  • What If Your Prized Painting Turns Out to Be Nazi Loot? The Niche Market for Art Title Insurance
  • Sale of the Week, May 27-June 2: Christie's Week-Long Hong Kong Auctions Cater to Every Taste
  • Allen Jones, Table (detail), 1969
    Allen Jones's Soft Porn Sculptures Spice Up Sotheby's Gunter Sachs Evening Sale, but Warhol Dominates
  • "When You Interrupt Us, You Have to Deal With Us": Murray Moss Invites You to Intrude at His Midtown Lab
  • K8 Hardy Ripped Fashion a New One at Her Riotous Whitney Biennial Runway Show
  • Viral Fashion: How the Facebook Wedding Dress Turned Priscilla Chan Into an Unlikely Style Star
  • Bonhams Australia Present Six Auctions of Amazing Art and Antiques from May 27 to 29

GO TO:

Home page

Editorial

  • Visual Arts
  • Performing Arts
  • Architecture & Design
  • Artists
  • ART PRICES
  • Market News
  • Style & Society
  • Events
  • Travel
  • Blogs
  • Videos
  • Slideshows

Products

  • Magazines
  • Gallery Guide
  • Blouin Art Sales Index
  • Somogy
  • Art Sites
  • Art Jobs

Louise Blouin Media

  • About Us
  • Subscriptions
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Louise Blouin Foundation
  • RSS
Copyright © 2012 All rights reserved. Use of the site constitutes agreement with our Privacy Policy and User Agreement.