The Tamesis
Dealer Gordon VeneKlasen has unveiled new details of his plans to separate from Michael Werner Gallery. After running Werner’s New York space for more than 30 years, Vene Klasen will take over that location as well as Werner’s London space (managed by his own gallery of the same name) and promote two long-time employees to partners. As part of the agreement, the short-lived Los Angeles branch of Michael Werner Gallery will close.
Justine Birbil, who oversees Werner’s global operations, and Kadee Robbins, who heads Werner’s London business, have both become partners at VeneKlasen. New York-based Birbil began working with Vene Klasen in 1988, when he was director of Curt Marcus Gallery; in 1993, he hired her at Michael Werner. Robbins, who joined Michael Werner in 2003 and has overseen the London gallery since its opening in 2012, will take on the same role at VeneKlasen.
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As part of the separation of Werner and Veneklasen, Micheal Werner Gallery’s Los Angeles space, which opened two years ago in a nail salon off Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, will close. Director Nicole Caruso will relocate to London to work with VeneKlasen Gallery there.
VeneKlasen said his gallery “will be very focused on New York and London,” adding that “opening a new gallery [would be] Three spaces is hard to do. I like [LA] Space, design is a great pleasure. We put on a great show there and the artist community was incredibly supportive. “
As previously reported art newsVeneKlasen will continue to represent the artists he brought to Werner, including Hurvin Anderson, Sanya Kantarovsky, Florian Krewer, Peter Saul and Issy Wood. Changes to the program “will show up over the next year as I add artists that weren’t necessarily in the program before,” he said, noting that he expects to add artists with a more conceptual bent.
VeneKlasen Gallery will participate in its first art fair next week at Art Basel Qatar with a solo exhibition of paintings by Issy Wood. In New York, the gallery will present its first exhibition of a series of four paintings by Sigmar Polke Dream of Menelausopening February 19; the Polke exhibition opens at the London gallery on March 3.
