via Art We Love

In a uncertain season for dealers and fair organizers, fifty-four contemporary exhibitors from the Armory Show’s 2009 edition won’t be returning for the upcoming March 3-7 edition.

Chelsea strongholds who are not returning include Marianne Boesky, Tanya Bonakdar, Cheim & Read, Anton Kern and Mitchell-Innes & Nash. London’s Timothy Taylor is also out, as are a number of non-profits who had previously taken part and are likely working with reduced budgets.

The fair has attracted 92 exhibitors who didn’t take part in 2009, including 62 first timers. That’s means 43% of the contemporary 2010 exhibitors weren’t showing in 2009.

The Armory Show is devoting special attention to Berlin galleries, and assembled a strong group of 21 dealers who have received special booth and shipping rates, will be clustered together on the fair floor,  and the focus of special events.

Another growth area: the up-and-coming Lower East Side dealers. (A posting with names…

After nearly forty years in a landmark 1909 townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Knoedler & Company has listed the property with Sotheby’s Realty, tagged $59.5 million.

The Renaissance-inspired building at 19 East 70th Street includes a ground-floor portico and two-story library. The property was listed for sale on Dec. 17, according to the real estate website Property Shark.  Sotheby’s broker Eva Mohr confirmed she had been hired to sell the building. Knoedler is located on the same block as the Frick Collection and was founded 163 years ago.

“A gallery on the scale of Knoedler & Company is somewhat constricted by the limitations of a traditional New York City townhouse,” said a gallery spokeswoman. “For this reason the gallery is in the process of considering other locations and alternatives that would offer more suitable space for its modern and contemporary art program.”

This latest news comes amid other major changes. In October the gallery issued a press release stating that longtime director Ann Freedman had resigned and would be succeeded by Frank Del Deo. More on that here and

Shala Monroque, a fashionista blessed with perfect bone structure and sartorial flare, attended Art Basel Miami Beach with art dealer boyfriend Larry Gagosian.

Luckily for us, she posted some excellent pics on her blog, including a Dec. 5 section titled “What Happens in Miami Does Not Stay in Miami.”

Shala captures dealer Tony Shafrazi faux-strangling hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, as an amused Gagosian and billionaire Eli Broad –eye-brows raised–look on. Shala’s witty caption reads “The art dealer Tony Shafrazi making a sale.”

Shala also gives us a table dancing Aby Rosen, collector and developer of the new marble clad W Hotel in South Beach.

The blog is presented under the auspices of Pop magazine, Russian collector Dasha Zhukova’s fashion magazine.

The fifty-dealer strong Abu Dhabi Art fair was dominated on Friday afternoon by back-to-back panels on collecting and museum creation. The NYU Abu Dhabi panel, “Collecting Today,” attracted an overflow crowd and featured the usually elusive Larry Gagosian, Dubai-based collector Farhad Farjam and the executive director of the Qatar Museum Authority, Roger Mandle.

NYU’s Mariet Westermann moderated the two-hour event, noting “collecting offers a form of insurance against the destructive march of time.”

While the discussion was evenly spread among all the speakers, this re-cap focuses on Gagosian since he so rarely appears on panels.   He didn’t disappoint. Wearing a gray suit and purple tie, he spoke at length. He was candid, shrewd, articulate with a tinge of humor and toughness.  (NOTE: What follows is not a transcript, but taken from my notes and therefore not exact).

He didn’t hesitate to get personal, revealing his boyhood angst over a second-class coin collection, and his feelings of inferiority when he was one-upped by another kid. “A sense of competition and maybe envy in its rawest form is what drives a lot of collecting,” he said.…

Art dealer Holly Solomon’s papers, including 220 boxes of materials tracing her involvement with Manhattan’s cultural scene from the 1970s-1990s, have been donated to the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. Solomon died in 2002 at the age of 68.

The trove includes letters between Solomon and artists Gordon Matta-Clark, William Wegman and others. The material is being processed and will be available to researchers and others, with written permission from her sons.

The Solomon collection includes gallery announcements, exhibition catalogs and audio visual materials, according to Jason Stieber, the Archive’s collection specialist.

The Archives of American Art is a repository for items associated with the history of American art, and includes papers from dealers Leo Castelli, Andre Emmerich, Edith Halpert and others.

Before working as a dealer, Solomon was an early Pop art collector. Her 1966 nine-panel portrait by Warhol fetched $2.1m at Christie’s in 2001, the year before she died.

Solomon and her wealthy husband Horace opened an alternative space, the 98 Greene Street Loft, in 1969. They launched the Holly Solomon Gallery in 1975 at 392 West Broadway, representing Nam June Paik and…

Bloomberg’s Philip Boroff treks to Millbrook to tour arrested art dealer Larry Salander’s 66-acre spread, which includes “a painting studio, indoor gym, outdoor pool, cement tennis court, miniature baseball diamond and garages for nine cars,” according to Boroff’s article. Camp Larry will be auctioned off on Monday to the highest bidder.

So far interest has been minimal, according to the article. There is a bid from a man who seems to be Larry’s most ardent supporter: Florida money manager Michael Lewitt. Lewitt’s partnership bid about $6 million for the Millbrook property plus the contents of Salander’s New York townhouse and jewelry, according to Boroff.

Lewitt had also agreed to provided Salander and wife Julie with $25,000 a month when he appeared in court in April 2008. Boroff’s article here.

Salander was arrested in March and July on charges he sold artworks without turning over funds to consignors. He plead not guilty.

New York art dealer Christophe Van de Weghe has purchased a 9,000 square foot five-story townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He plans to use some of the space as a showroom for art, open by appointment only.

The building, located on East 78th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenue, requires a gut renovation. Construction is expected to last two years.

Van de Weghe specializes in big-ticket secondary market artworks by Basquiat, Warhol and other artists. He operates from a gallery at 1018 Madison Avenue, home to other major art merchants including the Richard Gray Gallery and Mitchell-Innes & Nash.

Earlier this year, he subleased a ground-floor gallery space he owns at 521 West 23rd Street in Chelsea to photography dealer Stephen Kasher. Van de Weghe used the space as a gallery until this summer.

The seemingly recession-proof Larry Gagosian didn’t scrimp on the drachmas for festivities heralding the opening of his new Athens gallery and Cy Twombly painting show. (The new Greek gallery was first reported here.)

Two hundred and fifty guests were invited for dinner last week on the outdoor terrace of the sleek new $200 million Acropolis Museum.  The museum is sited at the base of the Acropolis, with views of the Parthenon temple.

Guests for the Sept. 24 soiree included New York real estate developer and art collector Aby Rosen and dealer Alberto Mugrabi. Dealer Doris Amman came from Zurich.

The Greek contingent included collectors Dakis Joannou, Dinos Martinos, and Dimitris Daskalopoulos, according to a guest. The gallery declined to discuss the guest list.

Shipping heiress Marina Livanos runs Gagosian’s Greek branch. She attended the party with her husband Andreas Martinos (nephew of Dinos).

Gagosian invited the younger  set for an after-party at the Athens Tennis Club. Start time: 11 pm.

Chelsea gallery BravinLee is using tough times to get creative, producing a series of  limited edition hand-knotted rugs by artists James Welling, Nina Bovasso and James Siena. The rugs, produced in an edition of 15, are made in Nepal and priced $8,000 to $15,000. A portion of proceeds benefits children in Kathmandu.

“Art needs to get out of the white box,” said John Lee. “This is born out of the current economic environment in a way.”

Fine artists have turned to product design over the years. During the Great Depression, New York art dealer Edith Halpert encouraged artists, including Stuart Davis and Georgia Keeffe, to design ties, scarves and other products. (Read more about Halpert and her remarkable Depression-era sales tactics here.)

New York art dealer Lucy Mitchell-Innes has been voted president of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA).

She follows Roland Augustine, co-owner of Luhring Augustine, who served the previous three-year term. Augustine is credited with bringing a new vitality to the organization and attracting gallery members during his tenure.

Mitchell-Innes is the first female president of the organization. She is a director of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, with locations on Madison Avenue and in Chelsea. She co-founded the gallery with her husband, David Nash, in 1996.

Prior to founding the gallery, Mitchell-Innes was worldwide head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s. She began working at Sotheby’s in 1981. She received a BA and MA from the Courtauld Insitute for Art.

The ADAA was founded in 1962. There are 170 member galleries in 25 U.S. cities. Previous ADAA presidents include William R. Acquavella, Eugene V. Thaw and Richard Solomon.