Wet Paint: Top Galleries Begin Making Layoffs, Basel’s Trois Rois Hotel Is Already Sold Out for September, and More Art-World Gossip

Each week, Artnet News brings you Wet Paint, a gossip column
of original scoops reported and written by Nate Freeman. If you
have a tip, email Nate at nfreeman@artnet.com.

GALLERY LAYOFFS BEGIN

The last time a global recession hit, dozens of galleries in
Chelsea closed and the number of global art fairs was halved.
Evening sales at auction houses grossed a third of what they had a
year earlier. Even Gagosian, the world’s biggest
network of art galleries, wasn’t immune. In a November 2008 memo
that was widely circulated in the press, Larry
Gagosian told his staff that “if you would like to
continue working for Gagosian I suggest you start to sell some
art.” The memo concluded in a chilling or galvanizing fashion,
depending on your disposition: “The general economy and also the
art economy is clearly headed for some choppy waters; I want to
make sure that we are the best swimmers on the block,” Gago wrote.
“The luxury of carrying under-performing employees is now a thing
of the past.”

Due to the economic crisis unleashed by the coronavirus crisis,
we’re once again clearly headed for some choppy waters. And while
by all accounts Gagosian staffers are safe for the moment, sources
said that employees deemed inessential at some other art-market
powerhouses will be laid off or furloughed until the gallery spaces
reopen. According to sources, Los Angeles’s Kayne
Griffin Corcoran laid off several staffers, including some
in leadership positions. (A spokesperson for the gallery declined
to comment.)

Lévy Gorvy, which has galleries in New York,
London, and Hong Kong, furloughed a number of employees but
said that there would be no further cuts for at least the next
year. When reached on the phone, gallery co-founder
Dominique Lévy said, “We’ve decided to
temporarily furlough a very small number of people and we’re
committed to bringing them back in 90 days, because some
employees cannot work remotely. We hope that these are
temporary measures, and they are necessary so our worldwide team
can focus moving forward.”

And late Thursday, a tipster reached out to say that
David Kordansky Gallery had laid off more than a
dozen staffers, effective immediately. One axed employee took to
Instagram to complain that the gallery didn’t wait a week to let
them go on April 1, thus snatching away a month of
healthcare. (A spokesperson for the gallery did not respond to
a request for comment.)

As for who’s getting the axe, for the most part, the layoffs and
furloughs affect operational staffers, not salespeople—mostly
because, as one source put it, “they aren’t spending money on
business-class tickets and hotels, so if they sell something, they
pay for themselves.”

Meanwhile, Frieze‘s parent company,
Endeavor, announced that it would lay off 250
staffers who could not perform their jobs remotely. It’s not clear
if the cuts will result in any departures from Frieze Fairs or
Frieze’s media publications, but in a letter to his employees,
Endeavor co-founder Ari Emanuel said that they
“will affect compensation and some jobs across the
company”—indicating that Frieze, like all divisions, is on the
table. (It was reported that talent agents, the who still form one
of the company’s core businesses, will not be laid off.)

Art-adjacent enterprises have begun to suffer as well.
W, the art and culture magazine,
furloughed all but a skeleton crew of people to maintain its
website, and restauranteur Danny Meyer—who owns
Untitled at The Whitney and
The Modern at MoMA—laid off 80
percent of his staffers, nearly 2,000 people. Although there is
some hope that Congress’s new stimulus package might help small
businesses secure loans that will enable them to stave off layoffs,
it is likely that more cuts are still to come.

AND THEN WE TAKE BERLIN

On Thursday morning, Art Basel announced that,
for the first time in its 50-plus years, its flagship fair will take
place not in the summertime, but in September, a postponement
that was necessary due to the, well, you know what we’re talking
about at this point. This matters for a number of reasons, most
prominently: White asparagus won’t be in season! (Then again, the
fall clime is slightly more amenable to annual fondue dinners.) But while insiders
(and readers of this column)
were aware of the move to September for some time, the exact week
wasn’t known—and the one they picked, September 14–20, presents
some issues for other rescheduled programming. Perhaps the shindig
in the biggest pickle is Gallery Weekend Berlin,
which was set to go down the first weekend in May before switching
to the second weekend in September, from the 11th to the 13th. Now,
that weekend is the one preceding Art Basel—meaning that, if
tradition is to be followed, it will also be
Zurich Gallery Weekend. And you can’t be
in Germany and Switzerland at the same time! What’s more, there are
nearly 40 Berlin galleries that need to be in Basel to install
their fair booths, and a few more showing at
Liste, which opens that Monday. In previous years,
exhibitors have arrived as early as Friday if they have to put
together a project for Art Basel Unlimited,
which also opens Monday—meaning that this year, they will miss the
Friday night exhibitors’ dinner in Berlin, often the highlight of
le weekend. We hear participants in the three-day Gallery
Weekend spree—which costs €4,000 to participate—are already
petitioning the board to move it back a week.

THREE KINGS, ZERO ROOMS

Speaking of Art Basel, it’s impossible to mention the expo
without thinking of its most important social nexus, the Le
Grand Hotel Trois Rois—that’s
The Three Kings to all you
non-francophones—recently described by no lesser
eminence than the Grey Lady as “one of the oldest and finest city
hotels in Europe.” Wet Paint agrees heartily! Which is why, minutes
after the fair’s new dates were announced, we went to inquire about
a room… only to find that not only is the new Art Basel week
already sold out, but the entire month of September is
booked solid. How is this possible? Well, sources say that
collectors and advisors, unclear on which week of September would
be the new Basel dates, went ahead and booked a room for the entire
month, perfectly OK with eating the steep cancellation fees. So, no
rooms for us—but we’ll have plenty of martinis at the bar, priced
at 35 Swiss Francs each.

KOONS KANCELLED OVER CORONA CONCERNS

Jeff Koons is newly active on social media, with his Instagram
and Twitter accounts lighting up with some of his classic works
from the past, along with some wacky captions where Koons applies
his can-do attitude to the increasingly dire pandemic situation.
(Here is a sample caption accompanying an image of his
Popeye sculpture: “We can defeat this challenge as a
global community. Stop the coronavirus! #coronavirus #defeat
#stainlesssteel #art”) But when it comes to seeing new works
by Koons in person, it’s gonna be a little longer than anticipated.
Due to the global health crisis, the opening of a new Koons project
at the DESTE Foundation
Projectspace Slaughterhouse—the pilgrimage-worthy art
space on the Greek island of Hydra founded by collector
Dakis Joannou—will no longer be held in June, and
will instead take place following Art Basel’s Swiss fair in the
summer of 2021. Plan your island-hopping accordingly.

SUPPORT THE ART-WORLD SPOTS!

All of New York’s restaurants are closed (or converting to
takeout-only) until further notice, and the reality is, many of
them will never fully reopen for business again. With no income,
layoffs are imminent, and if a space gets too much in the red, it
can’t recover. And while the entire hospitality industry needs
desperate help, we’re going to highlight two art boîtes that, if
they closed, would have a crushing affect on the health of New
York’s art scene. So, please donate to the GoFundMe for
Lucien, the art-world institution in the East
Village, which is trying to raise $100,000 to support its staff
during the shutdown. Performa founder
RoseLee Goldberg gave $500—you can give a few
bucks, too! Also, open your wallets and help contribute the GoFundMe for
Bacaro, the Venetian joint on the Lower East
Side that’s been feeding gallerists and artists for over a decade.
They’re also trying to raise $100,000 to keep staffers paid. The
artist Tom Burr gave $100! How cool is that!
Now—assuming you are still getting paid and can afford to help
out—it’s your turn.

POP QUIZ

What better time for a quiz than when you are sitting around at
home? Here it is: Name this work and its owner. Bonus points for
identifying the institution where it was on loan when this picture
was taken.

While we wish we could offer up dinner on the house at
Minetta Tavern, like the wonderful Keith
McNally is doing with his Instagram pop quizzes, the
winner will instead get instant fame via a shout-out in the next
edition of Wet Paint.

WE HEAR…

A number of coronavirus-afflicted members of the art world are
trying to trace the contagion back to the source, and many have
wondered if they got it at a certain gallery dinner held at the
fêted artist’s Pepto-colored house on the West Side of Manhattan …
in response to former Christie’s rainmaker
Loïc Gouzer posting a note on Instagram about
how “we ignored the CORONAVIRUS warning signs the same way we are
ignoring the CLIMATE CHANGE warning signs,” Art
Cologne director Daniel Hug commented,
“Stop flying your private jets, start taking some responsibility” …
Gladstone Gallery has given the keys to its official Instagram to its
artists, and Amy Sillman was up first, posting
works and homemade memes including a manic diagram stuffed with
of-the-moment scream-voice aphorisms like “NETFLIX AND FREAK OUT”
and “HOUSEPARTY.COM? REALLY? THAT’S WHAT HUMANS HAVE COME UP
WITH??” … Dan Colen‘s Sky High
Farm in the Hudson Valley town of
Pine Plains gave pork, brisket, and a
nice-looking loaf he calls “sourdough olive oil sweet potato
challah” to The Table at Woodstock, a food bank in
the hippie-tinged Catskills town … Dimes
Square might be shut down (we miss it desperately) but the
resident pirate transmissions of Montez Press
Radio will still be on the air, with a live edition of
Bad Masterpieces—a show hosted by the writer
Dean Kissick and yours truly—that will air at 9:00
p.m. Saturday, and you can tune in here …

SPOTTED

Met director Max Hollein, as
spotted by an eagle-eyed Kenny Schachter,
sauntering through Central Park standing not-quite-six-feet away
from passersby *** playwright and art-world darling Jeremy
O. Harris posting evidence of his star-studded
correspondence while in isolation, wherein he jumped on a
Houseparty with the actor Lee
Pace and was graced by the video chat presence of
Michael Shannon, who has thoughts about
Tom Brady‘s move to Tampa Bay ***
Writer Carlo McCormick in an old picture
posted to Instagram by the legendary Lower East Side art bar
Max Fish, wherein the art critic brought along
Johnny Depp as his drinking buddy ***

PARTING SHOT

The post Wet Paint: Top Galleries Begin Making Layoffs,
Basel’s Trois Rois Hotel Is Already Sold Out for September, and
More Art-World Gossip appeared first on artnet News.