The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the
world -- for contemporary art -- is driven by a few passionate,
guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break
careers and fortunes.
The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off
multimillion-dollar deals as wealthy buyers move from fair to fair,
auction to auction, party to glittering party. But none of it would
happen without the dealers-the tastemakers who back emerging artists and
steer them to success, often to see them picked off by a rival.
Dealers operate within a private world of handshake agreements,
negotiating for the highest commissions. Michael Shnayerson, a longtime
contributing editor to Vanity Fair, writes the first ever definitive
history of their activities. He has spoken to all of today's so-called
mega dealers -- Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Arne and Marc Glimcher,
and Iwan Wirth -- along with dozens of other dealers -- from Irving Blum
to Gavin Brown -- who worked with the greatest artists of their times:
Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, and more.
This kaleidoscopic history begins in the mid-1940s in genteel poverty
with a scattering of galleries in midtown Manhattan, takes us through
the ramshackle 1950s studios of Coenties Slip, the hipster locations in
SoHo and Chelsea, London's Bond Street, and across the terraces of Art
Basel until today. Now, dealers and auctioneers are seeking the first
billion-dollar painting. It hasn't happened yet, but they are confident
they can push the price there soon.
