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Barbara Gladstone rescued a beautiful dying species for become immortal.
Its hard to map what the merging of two such important pre-COVID-19 galleries might mean in a post-COVID-19 world.
But shock waves ripped through the New York art world on Monday when it was announced.
It shook me even as things seemed to be shrinking, this felt big.
Lets start with what was lost.
First, the gallery itself.
The event lasted two weeks; around 50 people came.
I was one of them.
Nothing was stolen or damaged.
It was as beautiful as it was desperate.
Six months later, Gavin Browns Enterprise opened in a teeny storefront gallery just steps from the Holland Tunnel.
Soon, he moved to a meatpacking place on the corner of LeRoy Street.
Brown is a special case in a class of special-case galleries and artists that emerged in the 1990s.
He famously didnt make studio visits and relied instead on listening to his artists.
His gallery felt cultish a cool kids club anyone could gain admission to if they had enough punk-bohemian allure.
It was less like Warhol than his Factory.
Collectors, artists, critics, curators the whole art world bought into this.
Of course, this couldnt have been sustainable; we arent having it both ways.
A lot of great art happened but so did a lot of bloat.
But size and money displaced all that.
Brown had to sell almost everything he had to renovate the Harlem space.
Great shows went unseen.
Maybe unsold, I dont know.
COVID-19 only revealed another fault line that had already been present before it arrived.
Gladstone, meanwhile, has been a force in different guises since the 1980s.
She has partnered with various people and galleries eventually leaving and going her own way again.
I had my work in Gladstones 57th Street space when I was a would-be artist (long story).
That Barney show, though, was key to her development.
She has always tinkered with her stable with mixed results.
Today, she is among the best gallerists anywhere.
Hes a singular visionary I might not let near a checkbook.
I love that he may be on the front lines going forward.
Perhaps these two great gallerists were long-distance swimmers finally tiring.
I want this to work, but who knows these days.
If Brown left, would his ten artists remain?
All these are questions for another day.
What this merging might mean for the bigger picture, however, is also not clear.
As for Brown, he writes: Gavin made a few unfortunate mistakesthe uptown movethat cost him his autonomy.
Those that got PPP loans have now gone through them; those that didnt are hurting worse.
Its a delusion to imagine that in this country we might all soon return to pre-COVID-19 normal.
That normal wasnt even normal in February, and its already gone.
People might wonder,If Gavin cant survive then who can?
The resulting shakeout is likely to widen the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.
Money and attention were unequally heaped upon this upper strata of megaoperations.
Those mid-tier galleries are in the business of risk and discovery.
Most of the megas dont so much produce culture as consume it.
We see lists of what sold in online auction; prices are touted.
Are mergers an answer?
Can galleries like 303 and Bonakdar, for example, merge?
Whats the upside (apart from becoming another beautiful dying species)?
Maybe well all work for them.
