The Contemporary-art Market's Most Formidable Alliances EndsSource:Artinfo.com Date: 2010-04-02 Size:

PaceWildenstein, one of the contemporary-art market's most formidable alliances, is ending.



Christina Wildenstein, Arne Glimcher, and Guy Wildenstein. © Patrick McMullan Company

According to New York Times, PaceWildenstein, one of the contemporary-art market’s most formidable alliances, is ending. Pace and Wildenstein & Company, which formed a joint company in 1993 in order to share clients, have announced that they are ending their partnership on amicable terms.

Insiders say the deal involved the exchange of hundreds of millions of dollars, with Pace buying out the 49 percent share that Wildenstein & Company owned in both the company and the inventory owned jointly by the two galleries. That newly acquired trove of paintings is believed to include works by Newman and Rothko, whose estate is represented by Pace.

“There was no logic in keeping it going," Pace chairman Arne Glimcher told the New York Times. "We are not exchanging clients in the way we once were.” When the two first united, Pace was known for its bankable list of postwar artists and Wildenstein & Company for its strong holdings in prewar work dating as far back as the Renaissance, making the two natural allies at a time when secondary markets sales were vital for underpinning an adventurous contemporary program. However, the wide range of PaceWildenstein's offerings is believed to hold less appeal in today's art market, in which collectors tend to buy only within specialized fields.

According to the report, PaceWildenstein’s three New York galleries will revert to the Pace name, and Wildenstein & Company will continue to operate it Upper East Side gallery. Glimcher reportedly refused to comment on rumors that Pace will launch a London gallery. Pace currently runs an exhibition space in Beijing.

PaceWildenstein has moved aggressively into the contemporary art market in recent years, showing work by L.A.–based artist Sterling Ruby at one of its Chelsea galleries last month.



[editor] Elemy Liu

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