In a distinctly depressed art market, support for young and emerging artists has perhaps never felt so urgent. In a bid to curb some of the hardships they face—as well as gleaning an additional source of income—mega dealers are increasingly teaming up with smaller galleries to jointly represent some of their youngest stars.
Some of them are in evidence at Frieze London and elsewhere in the city this week. Taking centre stage on David Zwirner’s stand is a new figurative painting by the New York artist Sasha Gordon titled Cyclops (2024, price undisclosed). At 26, Gordon is the youngest artist to have joined Zwirner’s roster in a partnership announced last month with the Los Angeles gallerist Matthew Brown. The collaboration is intended to “support Sasha’s expanding career and bring her work to wider audiences”, says Brown, who has worked with Gordon since he launched his gallery five years ago. Earlier this year, Zwirner announced co-representation of the 89-year-old US artist Raymond Saunders with Andrew Kreps and the Los Angeles-based New Zealand artist Emma McIntyre (age 33) with Château Shatto.
Joint representation is not new. Dealers have been sharing artists in the same city or territory for around a decade now, and it has been regular practice for artists to have different galleries in various markets for much longer. But the launch of Hauser & Wirth’s Collective Impact model last November marked a distinct shift in business practice. Since then, the mega gallery has jointly taken on four artists under the age of 45: Uman (represented with Nicola Vassell) and Ambera Wellmann (working with Company Gallery) as part of the Collective Impact scheme and Michaela Yearwood-Dan (co-represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery) and George Rouy (with Hannah Barry Gallery) as part of separate deals. Other large-scale galleries including Pace and White Cube have followed suit.
Some suggest big firms could go much further. Posting on Instagram this week, the emerging London gallerist Ellie Pennick writes: “Thought. Is it really so difficult for blue-chip artists and galleries to share their wealth and knowledge with ‘emerging’ artists and galleries to help them grow?”
Trust and transparency
Marc Payot, the Hauser & Wirth president, says his gallery’s goal is “to contribute actively to a more sustainable art ecosystem in which differently scaled galleries—from a large international gallery like ours to smaller localised galleries in key cities where we work—not only coexist but thrive”. He notes that relationships are “based upon mutual trust, complete transparency and equality in all business activities, alignment on the strategic vision for the artist and active sharing of knowledge and resources”. Each Collective Impact deal runs for five years and commissions are split 50/50 between the galleries; other joint representations are individually agreed.
The benefits of co-representation for smaller galleries include access to financial and other resources as well as the global networks larger firms have established over decades. Emerging artists, meanwhile, get to stick to their gritty roots while moving on up to a bigger shop. As for the mega galleries, it is a smart way of diversifying their rosters without “poaching” artists from their smaller colleagues, a practice that is often frowned upon, particularly in an increasingly hostile climate for those on the lower rungs of the market.
Artists are these days very active participants in their own careersMarc Payot, Hauser & Wirth
However, as Payot points out, it is not always the big businesses that kick off these conversations. As he puts it: “There’s a widespread assumption that large galleries ‘poach’ artists from smaller galleries. But this notion fails to acknowledge that artists are these days very active participants in their own careers. Conversations, which they themselves often initiate, can unfold over long periods of time in which a relationship develops organically.”
Hauser & Wirth is now expanding its vision for joint representation. In May, the gallery announced its partnership with Hannah Barry Gallery to represent the 30-year-old British artist George Rouy. The artist’s first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth, The Bleed, opens this week in London featuring new works (priced at £75,000-£250,000). The partnership is not part of the Collective Impact scheme and appears to be a more permanent arrangement. According to Hannah Barry, the galleries and artist “are in a committed collaboration”.
Barry began working with Rouy in 2017. The Hauser & Wirth collaboration is “acknowledgement of the fundamental value of the work we have done so far, and it is our shared belief that looking forward we can do more and better together”, she says. “Dialogue, exchange and connected thinking and ideas foster stronger, better futures.”
A fruitful model for artists
Collaborations can also arise when gallery staff jump ship. Last month, Joshua Friedman joined Pace Gallery as a senior director in Los Angeles after almost a decade as a partner at Michael Kohn Gallery, also in Los Angeles, where he worked closely with London-based artist Li Hei Di. The artist now straddles the two galleries as well as Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London.
Houldsworth notes how the “evolution of the art world ecosystem” has meant her business is “increasingly working in collaboration with blue-chip galleries”. She adds: “It’s a fruitful and collaborative model for artists, who can benefit from the rigour, prioritisation and dedication of our more intimate approach, as well as the opportunities and exposure presented by bigger spaces.”
Whereas a bigger gallery might require an artist to produce great quantities of work for multiple spaces or art fairs, mid-sized galleries such as Houldsworth’s are “less reliant” on this output model. According to the gallerist, this means “we can prioritise the building of strong foundations for our artists—ensuring works are placed in important museum collections, securing museum presentations and allowing artists to develop and experiment, as well as introducing them to writers, curators and collectors at pivotal moments”.
Despite a degree of cynicism for the model—and calls for blue-chip dealers to do more—it seems joint representation really is a win-win for today’s emerging art stars.