{"id":41930,"date":"2025-09-25T03:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/41930\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T03:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:58:11","slug":"roberta-smith-interviews-larry-gagosian-on-his-galleries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/41930\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberta Smith Interviews Larry Gagosian on His Galleries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHere\u2019s something you don\u2019t see every day: the world\u2019s most respected art critic interviewing the world\u2019s most famous art dealer. But thanks to Numero magazine, we now have the pleasure of reading Roberta Smith<\/a>\u2019s interview<\/a> with Larry Gagosian<\/a> (and, inevitably, his with her).<\/p>\n

\n\tHere are the key takeways.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey aren\u2019t exactly buddies. Smith, who has been an art critic since the 1970s, and spent 13 years as the New York Times co-chief art critic until she retired last year, reviewed dozens of Gagosian shows but \u201cseldom exchanged more than \u2018Hello, nice to see you,\u2018 and the occasional air kiss\u201d with the dealer until this interview.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Untitled<\/p>\n

\n\tGagosian is very hands-on. \u201cI can\u2019t micromanage eighteen galleries. It\u2019s impossible,\u201d he says, then adds, \u201cI call up almost all of my directors, almost every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s made some mistakes (actually, just two). \u201cWe had two galleries we shut down because it was a mistake to open them, and I recognized it pretty quickly. San Francisco was one of them.\u201d He later names the other: Geneva.<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, Gagosian\u2019s non-New York locations are often tryout spaces for artists. \u201cLike off-Broadway,\u201d Gagosian says.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s not Matthew Marks. \u201cMatthew Marks, I think, is a genius in how he represents a very concise, distilled group of artists,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly focused\u2014but that\u2019s just not how I\u2019m wired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis staff is the size of a regional law firm. \u201cWe\u2019ve got about 300 people working for us,\u201d the dealer said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first Picasso Gagosian ever bought came from a \u201chated guy.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s hanging in my dining room. I\u2019m not sure it was the very first, but it was close. A beautiful\u00a0Dora Maar\u00a0portrait. It came up at\u00a0Sotheby\u2019s\u00a0with a high estimate of $900,000. It was the last lot in the sale, and no one bid on it. I bought it for the estimate\u2014$900,000. Today, it\u2019s a $40 million painting. Afterwards, I ran into someone on Madison Avenue with a sharp tongue who said, \u2018You know why you got that Picasso so cheap, Larry? Because everyone hated the guy who sold it.\u2018 Worked out pretty well for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmith liked Gagosian\u2019s first-ever show in New York, which he put on in his loft in the \u201970s. \u201cIt might have been the first time I saw [David] Salle\u2019s work,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI remember standing in a bedroom of that loft\u2014it was high up\u2014looking at a wonderful Salle painting over the bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also liked his 1986 show of Warhol\u2019s famous \u201cOxidation,\u201d or \u201cPiss,\u201d paintings. \u201cI don\u2019t think\u00a0they really registered until that show. It gave me a whole new perspective on Warhol\u2014 as a kind of Abstract Expressionist manqu\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBarbara Kruger introduced Gagosian to Basquiat. \u201c[She] called and asked, \u2018Are you in New York?\u2018 I said, \u2018Yeah\u2014I mean, you just called me on my New York number.\u2019 She said, \u2018I\u2019m in a group show at Annina Nosei\u2019s gallery around the corner. Why don\u2019t you come to the opening?\u2018\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe thinks he should have kept Eli Broad\u2019s Basquiat skull painting for himself. \u201cI should\u2019ve held on to that one. But I sold it to Eli [Broad], and that painting is arguably Basquiat\u2019s masterpiece. \u2026 I sold it for $80,000 and felt like I\u2019d won the lottery.\u201d A painting from that series, which many in the market consider to be lesser than Broad\u2019s, sold for Basquiat\u2019s highest-ever auction price of $110 million in 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s really just a shopkeeper. \u201cWe\u2019re mostly just talking shop,\u201d Smith observes. \u201cI\u2019m a shopkeeper, after all,\u201d Gagosian replies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s something you don\u2019t see every day: the world\u2019s most respected art critic interviewing the world\u2019s most famous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,31510,31511],"class_list":["post-41930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-larry-gagosian","tag-roberta-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}