Larry Gagosian is known as the world’s most powerful art dealer, but not every move he’s made has been a success.
In 2016, Gagosian opened a San Francisco location near SF MoMA, but the timing was off.
“It just failed,” Gagosian recalls in a new Elle Decor profile. “I mean, nobody showed up. It was so depressing. I’d fly up there for an opening, and there’s nobody there. I’d go, What the f*** am I doing here?”
He told the upscale mag’s latest issue that a former Geneva location, which opened in 2010 and closed, was also a mistake. “I didn’t fully get the Swiss,” he muses. (Larry, you are not alone.)
These days, with 18 global locations, including his starry Beverly Hills spot, Gagosian is prepping to unveil his latest New York space at 980 Madison Avenue.
He’s coming full circle with a planned street-level gallery at the same UES spot where he first opened in 1989. Gagosian had office space and galleries upstairs in the same building, but he’s being displaced after Bloomberg Philanthropies bought up most of the property.
“It was pretty devastating,” Gagosian, whose office had been at the address for nearly 40 years, tells the Hearst magazine.
He’s moved his staff to Chelsea and elsewhere, but, “To me it was very important that I stay in the building… I’m excited about being on the street. Artists in particular thought [being upstairs] was a little off-putting. So we’ve eliminated that. We’re much more transparent now.”
His sushi restaurant Kappo Masa remains downstairs.
Last month in LA, Gagosian held his annual exhibition timed to the Academy Awards by putting up a show of new Jonas Wood paintings of tennis courts.
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