Gagosian Speaks in Abu Dhabi

Is it as big a deal as when Garbo talked? Maybe: the circumspect dealer almost never takes the stage. But he broke that rule at a panel on collecting in the VIP lounge of the new Abu Dhabi Art Fair. GoGo's charge was to offer "tips to the discerning collector" alongside Roger Mandle, director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. But Gagosian talked mostly about the motives that drive buyers and the art market—"My business has taken a hit, I won't deny that." He even offered a personal account about how feelings of childhood inadequacy turned him into an art dealer. Being Gagosian, he closed with a sales pitch to the sheikhs on how buying art can change the world.
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Jean Nouvel Promises a Rain of Light for Abu Dhabi

Architect Jean Nouvel puffed out his chest and gestured at his latest masterpiece—the Louvre Abu Dhabi, or at least a scale model of it. The Pritzker Prize-winning French builder was giving a tour of the construction site where, three years from now, a Louvre satellite art museum five football fields long will sit beside the Persian Gulf. Nouvel's sleek dream of an art museum, looking much like a low-slung flying saucer floating on water, is slated to open to the public in 2013. When it's completed, he boasts, its unusual open latticework roof will create a "rain of light" that changes hourly as the sun moves across the sky.   Read More

Jeff Koons on the Culture of Abu Dhabi

Today, the inaugural Abu Dhabi Art Fair opens in the United Arab Emirates. 50 art dealers, including powerhouses Gagosian, Acquavella, White Cube and Pace Wildenstein are represented. Many of these galleries are setting up booths in the Middle East for the first time.

Artist Jeff Koons is on the "international patron's committee" for the fair and we caught up with him beachside at the edge of the Persian Gulf. While he ducked some of our questions—among them, "Are you buying at the fair?"—and answered others obliquely ("Plato?" Really, Jeff?) he did discuss the culture in Abu Dhabi, and how one of his most famous pieces, a work for sale here, is often misunderstood.
 
ALEXANDRA PEERS: Is this your first time here?
 
JEFF KOONS: I was on… Read More

Weekly Bulletin: September 17

In this week's bulletin, Alexandra Peers has flowers for Georgia O'Keeffe, introduces the first female president of the ADAA, and a more productive take on mob mentality in the art world:


Like many artists of the 20th Century, Georgia O' Keeffe has been ill-served by museum gift shops. Her images have been so often reproduced on note cards, calendars and jewelry that when we hear of a O' Keeffe exhibition our mental rolodexes flip to "Lily, Giant Calla" and we think to ourselves, "Oh, I know what that show will look like."
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