Larry Gagosian in Conversation with Glenn Fuhrman

good to be here thanks Glenn you nervous a little bit all right good not the only one so actually before we started on the talk I wanted to ask you a question one of the most fun things for me and preparing has just been looking at a lot of images of some of the shows you put on an artist in particular and a lot of time on site Twombly who we'll talk about shortly but I know this April would be size 90th birthday what do you have planned what's gonna be going on to sellout that we're gonna have we're gonna have an exhibition to kind of celebrate Twombly's 90th birthday an hour in our gallery on 21st Street we've put together I think close to a hundred works on paper ranging from the early 50s to works he did right right to the end of his life it's gonna be it's gonna be I think really a fantastic show with the cooperation of the site Twombly foundation and Nicola Darrow CEO and many private lenders mr. Shah is - sure I'm looking forward to very much it's gonna be great awesome I'll look forward to that for sure let's go back to the beginning just start a little bit I know you grew up in Los Angeles tell us what was your family life like was there any art at all where your parents interested in art what kind of a home were you growing up in I grew up in a I guess middle class middle class home we didn't we didn't really have any art in our home I wasn't really exposed to art in terms of going to galleries or museums it wasn't it wasn't part of my growing up experience nor my parents so I you know I never really thought of art as a profession for for a dealer or even a professional artist just wasn't in my radar until I got to college and you know when you get to college you start learning things and started getting exposed to art acts didn't take any art classes per se but there was a gallery in Westwood Village Virginia duong gallery that was I think the first gallery I ever walked into it was it was it was mind-blowing for me I remember at the time I was in my 20s and I walked into this white space with I think was Robert Irwin show or something minimal art show and I was and it was I remember I remember that very very clearly it was it was kind of a I got a jolt from that and it made me more curious and when you've grown up in LA were you thinking like Hollywood did you have kind of dreams of Hollywood or what was what were you thinking you were gonna do when you were a kid I didn't really you know I really to be honest with you I wasn't that ambitious as a kid I didn't really and it did you know it didn't bother me I didn't feel like Jesus I got to get my act together right you know most of my friends weren't that ambitious so it wasn't a problem with them so ultimately you end up at the William Morris Agency were you an AJ when you were in this in - no I was I was I was on I was on a track - if things went right and and I kept kept interest in it I would have become an agent I became an assistant agent secretary and it just never took I mean what was I didn't it's something about the office environment and the way the whole thing was set up I mean I missed some fascinating people some of them are still friends of mine Ron Meyer Mike Ovitz they're still good friends of mine was over there as like a junior nobody the same time you would he was now he was I would never call him over to nobody he was you know a go-getter he was I think the head of the television packaging department he was already and I was his secretary so you weren't directly directly for work direct under Mike Wow and was he collecting back then do you remember I think he had just started to buy like prints or drawings he was but he got interested in art quite early okay so you're so you're at William artisan you're not loving it no and then something happens with poster sales I mean what has they let me go okay just to clear it up a the word the word is I was fired okay and which was kind of a relief for me because it was just like $90 a week hi Marie I'm working 60 hours you know 60 hours a week it was a lot of work no peg and but I had no I had no real prospects and I got a job parking cars in Westwood Village so really was really just about making an income at that but yeah I need to make some money and then as it turned out I saw somebody selling posters and basically just copied that that guy's business I bought posters from the same place he bought posters and what was on these posters what are the puzzles we're really you know if there's a level below Sherlock that would be that that would be what this was so like I put that museum post like a cat with yarn something like that ok so so I I tracked it down I tracked it down okay now you that's not fair you were selling these for 15 bucks is that right I would buy the poster for around a dollar and then I would put a little frame on it and try to sell for close to 15 if I got anything above 10 it was it was a good it's fascinating you you you you you picked the right thing to sell because this is literally still framed 15 bucks not been a lot of movement and I like yarn poster mark got a lot of appreciation there all right so yeah so you're very successfully selling these these beautiful posters right and then how do you move from there to kind of legitimate you know I started selling more expensive posters and you know I'd sell a poster with a frame for $50 $100 and then I got a little frame shop upstairs it was a cheap space available I think it's $40 $40 a month for space and Kim Gordon who everybody knows is a great musician sonic are the groups she was my framer and we had a lot of fun you know I was making money I was making money then I met Henry Miller I talked him into doing a watercolor show in my poster shop it was a thrill just to meet Henry Miller and I and I convinced him of this to be kind of a fun thing to do so we showed a bunch of his watercolors in my little poster shop and then I got really you know excited I started reading art magazines I saw you know going as fast as I could becoming very engaged in in in making money for the first time in my life and learning about something that I found was you know really really fascinating and and enriching and were you also taking some profits and buying art yourself at that point or not yet not not really not really and so then how did the transition to New York hyung transition to New York came I read there was a magazine and there was a photograph by a photographer named Ralph Gibson and I wasn't particularly knowledgeable about contemporary photographer but it appealed to me and I called up you know La information no Ralph Gibson I said well you know a lot of artists live in New York call up New York information I got the guy on the phone turned out to be a really nice guy whom I'm still friends with and I said you know Ralph I think I just saw your photograph in this magazine art in America whatever it was and I think it's really really cool would you consider sending me some of these photographs so I could sell them in my poster shop and you know most under those circumstances you could imagine most photographers always say forget end of conversation but he said well you'd have to come to my studio and and and see the work and so I'd never been to New York and he invited me to come to New York and and you got a road out here turned out he was represented by Leo Castelli which was very very fortunate did you know and I knew Leo was yeah I knew I me his name was such a big name right so you took a bunch of photographs back to LA back to LA put him and put him in my poster shop sold him Ralph came out had a great party and that's sort of and then that started you wanting to be more in New York or in you know more in New York I started going back and forth between LA me and you I was living in New York that was where my gallery was what was the poster shop at the time wasn't a gallery but I was going back and forth as much as I could afford and then ultimately in New York you ended up meeting Basquiat jean-michel Basquiat I met Basquiat and and where did you meet him this is a great photo you look like an Asian here this looks to me well you know that's true that's true I met Basquiat it was it was a fluke it was a fluke meeting it was a great encounter Barbara Kruger who I had met and became friends with in New York there's like 1981 she called me up I've lost on West Broadway which I had bought a couple years before actually traded a work of art for it we're gonna get there and bar Barbara calls me I'm sizzler I'm in this group show and Anita knows ace gallery on Prince Street Annina was a good friend of mine huh would you come up would you come over for the opening tonight's the opening I said sure so I walked over to a Nina's gallery on Prince Street and she had three rooms three exhibition rooms kind of a long thin gallery and the first one was some kind of conceptual architectural sculpture don't recall the artist the next room was Barbara Kruger photographs with the you know similar strategy to what she does now and then the next room the last of these three rooms there were these paintings in the room that the hair stood up when I saw I mean it was like electric literally electrifying just literally everything was like I'd never seen anything like it and I you know I hadn't heard of the guy I never heard the name Basquiat I'd never seen a painting by him I'd had no idea who made these panties and Annina walks out and and she says Larry do you like these and I said they're amazing I love them and and and I said what's what's are they sold or what's append she's well no these three there were five pins these three are not are not spoken for and I said well I'll buy all three of them and so she sold me those three paintings you remember how many were asked about he happened to be in raw how much were the paintings around $3,000 which was not dirt cheap for an artist he never heard of at that time or what they were so good yeah we're so good right I mean there was no mistaking it and and then I met him he was in her office for the opening and we kind of hit it off and we you know we became friends and I convinced him to do a show in La Nina went along with it she she she supported it he painted the paintings all in her basement and then we shipped him to LA I don't think he'd ever been to LA before we had a fantastic time and he had a girlfriend at the time right well this is just before he had the famous girlfriend that was a I think a year later he's living in my house now in Venice Beach and yeah it's one of the craziest domestic environment don't want to get into all the details but but fun with hands we had a lot of fun and then one one day he says you know my girlfriend's coming out to stay with me for a while I'm saying jeez you know what's when he's at your house my girlfriend's coming over one too many eggs can spoil an omelet who's your girlfriend her name is Madonna I said Madonna what kind of a name is Madonna and she came out and she was just starting to I think she had done her first album er so I mean she was starting to become a star amazing and so you met you mentioned Leo Castelli and clearly Leo was the giant of the day did you you know kind of pursue a relationship with him did it just kind of happen because ultimately you were business partners he even you shared a gallery space together down in Soho we ended up to actually having a partnership we had we had a building together on Thompson Street and we called the gallery 75 Thomas and we did a lot of great shows there primarily Leo's artist was great for me we showed Nauman we showed Kelly we showed Stella we showed Lichtenstein great shows all through Leo and I met Leo like a lot of other young dealers who wanted you know the coselli gallery was the place to go to see great shows and one day I kind of met him maybe Ralph Gibson and Leela and I kind of hit it off well he liked me yeah he thought I was you know kind of you know I could I was a bright young guy in his opinion and I could help him and I started selling art for Leo and and were you like learning from him in terms of how you saw him running the business I don't know if I can say I was learning from him but I'd a lot of his clients fair enough fair enough you mentioned coming to New York and I guess really the first thing you did was you got it loft on West Broadway it wasn't really a proper gallery no it was a raw loft and I had to you know make it habitable and you didn't have money but you had art III traded a Brice Marden painting which I somehow acquired and the owners of the loft building the ones who promoted it developed it they were also in the art business so I said well I don't have the $40,000 but I have this Brice ardan painting and they said okay we'll take the Bryce Martin painting say really enough at that time this and that day we're collectors yeah they knew that you know Bryce Martin was all I mean it's kind of amazing so Bryce was really the your first part of your first art world acquisition of this loft and now you know back and a part of your your your roster and putting on beautiful shows so it's kind of an amazing bookend and so and then then then something about you also didn't have the money to decorate this loft you really didn't have a lot of money you try and make me feel bad so how do you get the place decorated well Peter Marino who I didn't know I didn't know in fact I don't think I even knew who Peter Marino was but like I was on the fifth floor and on the there was a double loft on the sixth floor the top floor this guy named our our salon Ian diamond dealer that was that was his loft and Peter Marino was doing a really you know lavish kind of renovation for him and I met Peter kind of going to look at the loft with with Aurra and I said well I got this little loft down here I don't have that kind of money but if you could maybe help me and so he you know he did the law for me for nothing I thought he did it for a Trombley I traded him a Twombly drawing okay I traded him a Twombly blackboard drawing so the the barter network okay he did okay don't you still have it I think he does still that Wow Wow all right and then just while we're down there so then ultimately you're moving to Worcester this is incredible space in Worcester which Richard Serra takes credit for finding for you or for being the impetus for you he's might have I don't remember I mean he was it was the opening show he says that he was walking with you and wanted a space that was big enough to show his works and yeah we had it's it's a tough it's a tough image but you can see the work fits in there nicely it was a beautiful space a beautiful space very clean and that was a space that you had a lot of great shows at a lot of Cemil shows for me because that was when I was first really getting into the art world and spending a lot of my weekends going down there and you know I remember very well the the damien hirst show there that was such an that was a great show how did you first hear and meet Damian and and and that show was a pretty major undertaking because a lot of that work was pretty significant and had to be you know manufactured and how was that all too well I'm ed I'm a daming it was similar to the Basquiat story as you know I when I come to London I started going to London you know to kind of get around a little more and one of my one of the first stops I'd make was the Saatchi Gallery I'd always go to Charles saw because he had the best shows and he had the you know he was a genius he had amazing shows and I was there one day and it was a group show maybe three or four artists and I walk into this room and then there's this shark just gigantic shark in a case with which turned out to be formaldehyde I'd never seen anything like it I mean it was like it blew my mind I had no idea who did it I went to the phone and in in the office at Boundary Road got Charles on the phone I said who did this shark is just OS Damien Hirst he's gonna be the most famous artist in the world and so I met Damien through Charles and started you know a long relationship I mean I still remember this is an ashtray I still remember this thing stunk to high heaven it's filled with cigarettes I still have that it still stinks and I mean this is like a ball up in the air there's like turns and of course this is another split animal here that was a fantastic show and and one of these spun around literally this one I think was there's this big long series of vertical of the trees here had a cow that was severed like like and you could walk in between exactly yeah I remember that but it was right the the the funny part of the story is that's exactly when mad cow disease was at its peak and we couldn't get the that work of art into the United States because even though it was in pickled in formaldehyde nobody's gonna eat it customs will touch it there was such a blanket quarantine frank Lautenberg was a great guy senator from New Jersey I knew Frank a little bit I called Frank up I said you got to help me out man I got this our show is our show is over if we can't have this is the centerpiece and so he called whoever he had call and we got they've got the piece in yeah incredible incredible thing alright so and and so then in two thousand you open a London gallery first and head and Street and obviously now there's a whole bunch of different galleries you know it may not seem as big a deal today but that was a very big deal at the time it was kind of like unwritten rules in the art world where you kind of had New York and somebody else had London and somebody else said Germany was did you view that as like an aggressive business move and obviously Anthony dough Fae was the big player in London and and did you did you see it as a very competitive threatening move about threatening I think I think you know businessmen always want to be competitive and I'm about threatening it just seemed like a good evolution of my business and my gallery and and I was excited about opening something in London having that kind of an adventure getting a staff together working on shows it got my juices going so I kind of went for it right away since we found a space that was suitable I said let's do it we started having shows we ended up moving to another space and we continued to kind of grow our our business in London since since that first gallery on hidden street yeah it's funny to hear you talk about you can see like some real enthusiasm about just finding a new property and getting developed and being in a new country and you've kind of repeated that model quite a bit but there's an excitement to do that and and and often times it seems like you went to Slide Trombly to open these new spaces he was just your go-to for so many years I'm having a new bit new gallery you know I need a new site for me show it was it was it was a great way to pay for the renovation and silence oh he was and he was just you know he was he was a great friend of mine became one of my closest friends but he was just one of those artists that would just say okay let me see what I can do and then he would he would make a show for me and how much time did he need it wasn't the time he needed to make the paintings because psy painted pretty fast you know like Picasso or like Basquiat or certain artists certain hours it's not about spending five years on a painting they can do a painting in a day and it could even be better than the it takes five years but he would he's not on the other hand he wasn't the kind of artist that everyday would go to the studio and work he had to have some idea of what he wanted to paint he had to literally see the painting and when he saw it and when he felt good about it then he would go execute and that's the way he worked so he worked in spurts he'd worked for a month all day every day and then he wouldn't work for six or seven months eight months he wouldn't do nothing he would he wouldn't work so it was unusual artists in that way and most artists that I've worked with and know about they go to work in the morning they make a painting there but he was something that if you gave him a day you know May of next year he would be like okay yeah oh I don't want to disappoint you Larry one time I gotta tell ya there's a great great belt I know we're doing limitless time but he was he was painting he'd go back and forth between Italy and Virginia he'd paint a show in Virginia and then he got tired of Virginia you can't stand this crappy food I got to get back to Italy and then he'd say these these Italians are driving me nuts I got to go back to Virginia so he would go back and forth and he had studios in BO city and he was gonna make a show for his 75th birthday I think of it now that he would have been 90 and I was I went down to Virginia to see the paintings in lexington checked into a little bit bread and bed and breakfast where I always stayed and and and and that night before I went back to my room he said Larry I'm sorry I'm not going to be able to do the show really I was so horrible nervous because was always going to open in about two months and he said III don't want I don't want to disappoint you but the paintings are just terrible they're just mud yeah I'm sorry I don't know what to do I can't do anything about it so oh man well you know so go go to go to bed get up in the 7 o'clock and where I get a call from sigh 7:30 in the morning a call from sigh don't leave he repainted every canvas that day and and those paintings are in Glen stone and with the broach body of work this is called was it called passage of time those those pale blue paint white I think I was like the birthday painting they're all beautiful paintings I never saw with the underlying mess was but they came out beautiful all right so this is an early one where maybe you guys went to Target together no he was a Walmart guy Walmart guy that was part of our routine when to go to Virginia he liked going to Walmart and we'd wander up and down the aisles for a couple of hours and it was like seriously very relaxed what was he buying at Walmart he just liked looking at the stuff and and just kind of it just it was like a Larry let's go to all kind of a Zen thing all right I've got him in Walmart's in these rural areas they're really almost like Civic Center's I mean people kind of congregated all right so I got I got a few in a row here so so this is relatively this is a while ago so you're looking at the sigh you're looking at that painting I kind of think you're looking at that painting like that looks really good then you go here you're looking at like I really think I really think that's good and this is the one where I think you asked sigh if you could buy it and he said yes yeah and this is a great image of you and that's where that's when that's when Richard and sy won the the Golden Lion they gave them each the Golden Lion award in Venice that's I think's I was showing Lepanto and Richard had these Tork delipcious screws so here here's just you're talking about I'm talking about yeah they definitely look spectacular beautiful it's the winter paint and when there's those of Britannia Street those are the Roses London so this is Rome Rome spectacular opening gallery they're putting the gallery there and then in Greece one thing that's amazing I was told that you have more gallery space in the Tate Modern now then who then the Tate Modern would work more square footage whoa it's kind of scary you have better sales to that yeah is there is there is there a geography you want to conquer next is there any place that you can see that you don't right now I think we got enough galleries for the time you never know when something comes along that really seems interesting you think about it but I don't feel like there's I don't feel like I need to open another gallery right now all right so I want to talk a little about portraits you sat for a number of portraits and a lot of artists have also chosen to paint you this is a one mark dentist interview which is a good painting and then here we have Elizabeth Peyton which you sat for she's a great painter but I don't know serious I don't know I thought she liked me until I and then a great David Hockney painting oh that was so much fun City for David and then the Basquiat yeah he did that in his studio standing there so when you're when you're sitting for boskie when you're sitting for for all three of them but I guess maybe Hockney in particular is it is it kind of a work is it funny you chatting well Hockney he wants you to give him three days and I could only give him two and I think he was a slightly irritated but I literally had to get back to New York and I had no I couldn't doing about it so that was a two days sit Elizabeth Peyton is really she's a lovely woman you go to her apartment in the village and she puts on you know Dylan and you just sit there and it was very pleasant Basquiat painted that thing probably in a couple hours right and that was fun cuz you you guys were such good friends at that time and so the obvious one that I would show if I had it but it's not here is the Warhol portrait so how is there no Worldport well because he died because we you know i we wanted to do my portrait and and we never got around to it and then he died he was only 58 years old was you nobody expected him to die I'm trying well I wish you wish I had done that when he was around alright so I want to just look at talk about mal apart a for a second so when you look at this you talk about expanding gallery spaces this is a spectacular house on cliff and Capri built in like 1937 and somehow or other you looked at this and you're like oh no my my friends could come up these 200 stairs from the water and we could maybe figure out a way to get a big table on the roof and we could fill the house with paintings yeah let's have a gallery show there yes how does that happen well it happened because the owner of the house is the original malla party family and and and the the lady of the house is really a wonderful warm person and and I think she liked the fact that we were bringing you know this this new life to to the house and so she was very you know accommodating and happy happy to let us do this we get we get a local restaurant in in Capri that brings the food in 60 people one long table on the roof and then the the great thing about the show is it's only one night and if you want to buy a painting you have to go there and buy the painting no no photographs are distributed no no advance quietly exclusive well it's just it's a way to well because it's one night you can't say well I can't make it you know I can't be there in a week forget it right so you got to show up I mean it is a pretty spectacular place and it's usually a full moon these are these are some of Larry's guests on the different boats here this one is definitely one of your guests yeah and then this is the dinner on the roof that they squeezed a table and there's Brice and there's a full moon ed rachet and the full moon definitely a nice evening here's this is at Wembley show that was there in 15 and this is a house that people are still living in just to go good so there was a grouse on show the following year just in the bedroom I mean just absolutely incredible incredible experience I'm happy to say I was there which was and enjoyed every second of it when you when you put on some of these incredible shows you you're kind of the inventor of these kind of museum quality shows whether it's Picasso and what not where nothing is for sale first of all that's not rules that this is a model work yeah I mean we don't say nothing is per se but it's basically very very little this for sale you know we're not selling the pains that are led by the MoMA operations but you know sometimes it's it's it's a good context to sell a painting or to very few of them are for sale in these historical but is it like you you will start with one very valuable painting and then build a show around that one page there's all different ways sometimes it comes from a group opinions that we're able to get or it comes from a foundation or there are different ways to put it together it depends on the artist and and they usually curated internally internally but now you have like world-class curators on the staff that's right that's also part of the business model now we sometimes use outside curators if it makes more sense but usually we do it ourselves and is there anything in the works that you can kind of talk about that's kind of in that in that realm and I think I can talk about right now but there's always something there's something coming yeah something coming something exciting I want to talk a little bit about some of your business practices you pay commissions as part of the sales process of your salespeople right doesn't seem like anybody else does and if anybody does it's not really well known why is it so successful for you and nobody else has figured that out I can't speak for other people I mean you know I just think if people if people are you know talented and they're able to particularly make sales and which is obviously good for the gallery good for me good for the artists we represent why not when I give them why not give them you know the Commission why not I think it motivates people you know sometimes it over motivates them and yeah you know two or three people fighting for the but that does it those times are really few and far between I I just think it's a good way to you know to I can't speak for what other gals has there been an evolution because it seems that maybe some of that infighting that you that you alluded to you heard more about that years ago you don't hear about it as much as the business maybe has matured is that a little bit your business no we still do that we still pay people who know but I'm saying there's less infighting there's less than the competition yeah because of the you know systems and more understanding of what the parameters are and when you win it when you have you know when you have something an issue that comes up repeatedly then you kind of you have to look at what the structure is that may be leading to that kind of friction and you're not gonna eliminate a hundred percent of it but it's a it's a good observation and you know as I think of who your clientele is it's unprecedented the number of incredible business people that you're dealing with whether it's you know Gucci Prada you name a CEO name a global successful busily der they're a client of yours alright have you can you think of things that you've gleaned from them that you've applied to your own business I mean are you learning kind of from them in some ways as they may be you know kind of doing business with you maybe not directly but I think the lesson you learn from you know successful people is you know just the obvious stuff work hard stay focused and you know treat your people correctly are you are you more of a characteristic as a CEO maybe maybe that's ask them I'd say carrot the carrot works and as the business has grown Larry it's it's hundreds of employees 16 galleries supposedly a billion plus of a year in sales I can't think of any other billion-dollar business in the world that theoretically could disappear because it's so reliant on the leader is your business something that could survive you is there well we're working on that is we're working on that we've just started you know really focusing on that and we're doing some things internally and in other ways that I don't really want to get into here that will I think get us beyond me or my you know my ultimate demise or retiring I don't plan on retiring but I you know it's it's a great I think we've built a great gallery a great business and I would like to see that I mean the travel I don't have children and that's usually how these legacies are established you know with generational and I don't I don't have that so it's it's a little trickier but this is something this is something that's really important so it's something you care about I do care about it yeah and then in terms of just last thing on the market the current art market it seems like there's a little bit of a bifurcation between the kind of top-tier galleries that seem to be thriving opening new spaces oftentimes building giant new buildings around the corner from their existing recently new giant new building right and yet the middle and and and certainly the smaller galleries are really struggling and a lot of them are going out of business is that something that you think is gonna continue or do you think that's just the nature of the beast and the bigger galleries are gonna just play it to a broader market I mean how's it going you know I did these things I think these things run in cycles and I think now there's a like consolidation I guess you can use that word where galleries are actually buying other galleries literally buying other galleries to kind of scale their business up you know they could overshoot you know I mean there's three new towers our towers being built in Chelsea right now right 50 60 70 thousand square-foot art towers for one gallery so we'll see we'll see how that works and you know maybe maybe goes too far that way and then all of a sudden a new group of dealers comes in at a different level and it looks like a refreshing alternative I I do think that that when things are good in the art market everybody kind of wants to be an art dealer and everybody wants to open a gallery and there's not an infinite supply of talented interesting artists so I've seen this cycle before and I think it's sort of a natural thing it's said obviously it's painful if you're the gallery that's under that pressure you have to close but you know there's no guarantees in business I mean even with these giant buildings going up it seems like such a core part is still art fairs I mean is the Art Fair at this point just a necessary evil do you enjoy the oh really they're really they really become more and more important and you know in terms of the bottom line of galleries and and and generating revenue and exposing your artist to a much broader audience and you couldn't you know even even in a major gallery exhibition and I think that trend is going to continue do you still have some artists that say I just don't want to be in our fairs or you just occasionally but most of them most of them do want to be and you can't put every artist in every fair I mean some artists just don't produce enough work to do that other artists if they're more productive they can they can distribute to fairs but yeah it's a great it's a great part of the business I mean there's a lot of fairs now I mean jeez there's another Fair where we gonna get the yeah you have to go out and buy art to put in the next fair because you can't always ask the artist just to keep producing work for ferrars I mean they'll just say hey listen you know I didn't write but it's definitely it's definitely a you know a plus for the overall you know our business I think it's a bigger piece of the pie than it was 10 15 years ago interesting yeah so in addition to being a great deal are you also have built one of the great collections in the world these are all works from your own collection that's great Jeff Koons painting incredible Lichtenstein you know iconic and rachet I mean this is a small snippet to swar whole great site Twombly and of course it's amazing Richard Serra your place out in the Hamptons but you know what has been your perspective as a collector of you have you particularly bought these things just because you love them and wanted to have them were they things that you know you kind of bought thinking that you might sell them down the road I mean what was the nature of the collecting from the beginning and to today if it's evolved a little bit well as you know as my business grew and as I had the means to buy you know you know more major things and that obviously had a bearing on my collecting but I think from from the earliest you know time of my gallery when I started buying drawings and I just like I like collecting I like I like acquiring I like you know living with art I like the process it's almost like another process I mean I can afford to do it because of my business but it's sort of a separate it's almost like a separate activity I found also just parenthetically the people who work at the gallery sales people particularly I'm talking about I will say that's a little too crude because they do a lot of other things they work with artists they work on but one of their functions is selling the people at the gallery you buy art collect art for themselves almost always end up being the most successful it's not just going to make some money and sell some art and you know it doesn't just have some or hasn't penetrated you underlying passion you know what things are worth and you kind of get it gives you a different sense of what you're doing but for me it's just I just love I love building a collection I think it's and is there a bright line or the things that you you have in your collection also could be for sale if somebody already very rarely I mean I mean very very rarely do I sell things I read that I really consider my private collection I mean you know any of the things you've shown here I can I could sell very easily for you know handsome some but if you if you start doing that then it's then you don't have a collection it's just inventory that you hang in your house and and I and I do look at it as a different it's a whole different you know thing it's not just inventory in my house it's stuff this part of my life that I live with it I enjoy you know I enjoyed getting up in the morning and seeing them on the wall I go to bed at night I enjoy seeing them it's it gives me a lot of pleasure and I think that's what that's what makes a collector and what's what's the long term plan for what happens to your collection I'd like to be able to afford to give it away to keep it together as well I mean you know I do have to sell you know I can't keep everything together but keep them the vast majority of it together and so somehow make it as a gift have an identity I don't know what form that's gonna take you know probably some other institution I'm not going to build I'm not Mitch rails I'm not going to build a Glenn stone or Eli Broad I don't have the means to do that or really the ambition to do that but I would like it to be you know I would like it to live on as a collection well it's not for a long time and it's a beautiful motion I know it's continuing to grow so all right let's take some questions from the audience here that everybody was nice enough to submit okay this is I'm a 22 year old art history major who wants to open an art gallery what advice would you give me wait a couple years what single sale are you most proud of I can't say I mean luckily quite a few it's hard to say there one major one that was a Seminole Seminole sale either earlier in your career or to a collector you had been trying to get into forever well when I sold the mondrian victory boogie-woogie which is arguably the most important painting Mondrian ever made and one of the great modern masterpieces of the 20th century Burton Emily Tremaine owned the painting for many years they bought it from can't remember the dealer's name right now but they literally bought it off Mondrian zeizel it's an unfinished painting and it was hanging in their apartment on Park Avenue and it was known that they would sell it and nobody nobody could find a buyer nobody came up with the right price and I was able to sell that painting it was a breakthrough for me I'd never sold anything at that price before and historically important before and I would you know I was very proud of that sale you're known for having artists come to you from other galleries sometimes it does happen the other way around what could leap makes an artist to part that goes in they think they can do better elsewhere they think that another gallery or maybe they're tired of the relationship or maybe they think they need a reboot with a new dealer does it ever like to take it personally is it does it happy business you know I don't really tell you no I mean it can be you can annoy me for sure but you know you get used to it after a while I mean there haven't been a whole lot of comeback and sometimes yeah they come back that happens also and sometimes they leave and everything oh you lost that artists well the truth is you didn't really want to keep him Nessus I mean this is not sour grape so I'm just saying that that also happens where you kind of lost your enthusiasm for the work or maybe it just doesn't interest you anymore I mean there's a balance between being loyal as a dealer which is what everybody you know wants to be loyal and if it if the work just doesn't you know if the artist is really not making good work and it's going on for quite a while it's hard for a dealer to be loyal under those circumstances particularly if the works works not selling in an arson we feel that maybe in another with a fresh with fresh blood a new dealer they can they can you know get get activity going I understand that right and scalability ever become an issue I mean are you just not able to be there for as many artists as they want you to be there I mean you have a hundred and twenty artists listed I mean however many artists that are really putting on shows you it's a large number I spent a lot of time going to artists studios anybody who works in the gallery who knows me I'm very hands-on one of the things I enjoy is leaving the gallery in the morning or leaving home in the morning going to maybe two or three studios and that's my whole day I love that so you know there's certain artists work that need more attention there's some because of the logistics of how the work is made or maybe they just need more face to whatever the reasons are some artists you know they don't they don't necessarily want you to come to the studio so there are all kinds of you know but I like going to artists studios I never feel like I don't have enough time sometimes when a new artist will come to the gallery though say geez Larry you have all these galleries you've got all these artists I know I get Evers am I going to ever see you again and they're usually pleasantly surprised that I you know I do like that yeah I want to see what's going on I want to see what they're making I want to talk to them and every one of the artists that you do a show of you representing you like the work yeah absolutely so you're the taste maker ultimately making the decisions that's who comes into the gallery well we have we have a you know committee I guess you can call it that and we all like that work it's not coming if I don't like the work it's going to be tough to get me to change my change mine okay so this is a question what one artist did you pass on that you wish you did not I can't think of one I can think of artists I wish I represented that I don't represent that's we'll take that a dad look let you have a replacement question okay what artist don't you represent that you wish you represented Charlie were a probably the one that I would share with because I just think he's a great artist and I happened to put a collection of his work together he must have had six or seven major pieces by Charlie I think he's a great artist I don't represent him I think he has a great dealer Mathew Marx is a genius art dealer he's doing great for Charlie but do I wish I represented Charlie absolutely and of course there's others but like Gerhard Richter I'm sure you hear heart doctor yeah but yeah Gerhard Richter's and though you know Charlie kind of I know him generationally it's a little closer to me in that way Gerhard Richter who wouldn't want representing Gerhard right okay you're known for your business sense what happens if you like an artist but their work does not sell how long it can you be with them well it depends on why it doesn't sell I mean some artists their markets are very slow the work is very challenging I can be infinitely patient with an artist like that I really don't base representing on our somewhat I mean sometimes people come to me you know you could represent this ours I'm not going to name an artist because it's a bit of a pejorative right and and they sell like crazy you know you'll you'll just coined it Larry I'm not interested in that story maybe that might surprise people because I'm sort of thought of as a guy it's like wants to make money wants a song but if I don't if I don't respect the artists they're artists that we represent that just now after they've altered DeMaria I may have worked with Walter DeMaria 20 25 years very difficult very slow sales but such an important artist in my opinion that I never ran out of patience okay do you see a common I can't read that one sorry all right you are well known for throwing incredibly fun parties or having small dinners with fascinating groups of people is this just your own enjoyment or is it part of a business model that you think your clients would want to be I think it's both but it's not a calculating thing like you have it you know I love having dinner I love entertaining I've always have since I was a kid when I was in grammar school for some reason him a little crummy little house we lived in my friends would all come over to my house I don't know why it's always that's just the way I am wired I like entertaining I like having people over is it good for business yeah sometimes not always but but I enjoy it I enjoy I enjoy being around people Larry thank you very much thank you all very much you

Channel: The 92nd Street Y, New York

Views: 47,021

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y

Id: 6FgcVapAo9w

Length: 46min 42sec (2802 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2018