The Auction Houses
Just three months after starting as chairman of fine art at Sotheby’s, Marc Porter has been lured back to Christie’s as chairman, Americas, a position he departed in December 2015. This time around, Porter, a 25-year veteran of the house, will focus on business development and private sales, and serve as part of the executive management group.
Phillips has appointed Lilly Chan, former global managing director for Asian art at Christie’s in Hong Kong, managing director of Asia, effective May 2017. The house has also named Laurence Calmels, an art advisor and former partner in the Calmels-Cohen auction house in Paris, as regional director for France.
Serge Lemoine, scientific and cultural counselor for Artcurial in Paris, has been appointed to the Conseil des Ventes Volontaires by the minister of justice.
The galleries
Longtime New York Times art journalist Randy Kennedy has left the newspaper to become special projects director at Hauser & Wirth. Meanwhile, director Anna Erickson has left to begin her own art advisory firm, AKE Art Ltd.
Nick Koenigsknecht has been named a partner in Peres Projects. Also in Berlin, neugerriemschneider gains Heinrich zu Hohenlohe from Dickinson, with a mandate to develop secondary-market sales. Fiona McGovern has joined London’s Alison Jacques Gallery as director.
New York’s Postmasters has added a space in Rome, headed up by Paulina Bebecka as director-at-large. Kerry Doran has taken over as director of the Tribeca gallery.
Cortesi Gallery, with locations in Lugano and London, will add a new location in Milan with an exhibition of Nicola De Maria’s monumental paintings from the 1990 Venice Biennale (3 May-21 July). Victoria Miro expands to Venice, taking over the former Galleria il Capricorno with an inaugural exhibition by Chris Ofili (10 May-1 July). Also in Venice, Paris-based Galerie Alberta Pane unveils a new exhibition space in a former carpenter’s workshop with the thematic group show Le Désir (13 May-29 July).
Galerie Eva Presenhuber, of Zurich, inaugurates a New York space designed by Annabelle Selldorf at 39 Great Jones Street on 6 May with a show of new works by the Austrian painter Tobias Pils.
On the Upper East Side, Richard L. Feigen & Company is moving four blocks north, to 73rd Street. His gallery’s former 69th Street space will be shared by the advisory Adler Beatty and David Zwirner, who plans to use it for private viewings and special projects.
Koenig & Clinton is leaving Chelsea for Brooklyn, opening in Bushwick in June with a show of new works by Albert Herter. Los Angeles-based dealer in arts of the ancient world Barakat has moved to a new 7,000 sq. ft, bi-level gallery on La Cienega in West Hollywood.
Magda Danysz Gallery, of Paris and London, has opened a new location in Shanghai with a show of photographs by Liu Bolin, on view through 21 May.
Elsewhere
A consortium of forensic, legal, appraisal, and security specialist firms has banded together to form the Art Due Diligence Group (ADDG). ADDG comprises Artive Inc (title and claims), Art Recovery International LLC, Art Analysis and Research Inc (forensics and research), Vitruvian Arts Consultancy Ltd (brokerage and independent fine art consultants), Virtus Risk Management (security and due diligence), The 36 Group (barristers specialising in art, property, and commercial law), Taylor Hampton Solicitors (dispute resolution, litigation and reputation management), Pandora Mather-Lees Consultancy (administrative and art business services) and Malcolm Taylor Consultancy (art mediation services). The London-based group aims to provide a full menu of services to the international market.
Artsy has acquired the data science firm ArtAdvisor, co-founded by Lucas Zwirner and Hugo Liu, and has appointed Liu to the newly created position of chief scientist. AN MIT-trained specialist in computational modelling and AI, Liu founded the taste-prediction app Hunch, which was acquired by eBay, and went on to serve as the company’s principal scientist for merchandising.
Artist moves
Clive Smith jumps to Marc Straus. Parker Ito has joined Team Gallery. Lorna Simpson is now represented by Hauser & Wirth. Sean Kelly Gallery has taken on Julian Charrière. Nichelle Beauchene now represents Alex Bradley Cohen and Andrea Joyce Heimer. Chicago’s Monique Meloche Gallery now represents Brendan Fernandes.