Boom

February 25, 2019
Journalist Shnayerson (The Car That Could) traces the back-stabbing, money-driven history of the contemporary art market in this engrossing account. Drawing together historic documents and interviews with artists and gallery owners, Shnayerson reveals how colorful dealers propelled the market from one of the love of collecting in the 1940s into today’s “big way that a lot of rich people were going to express themselves.” Betty Parsons nurtured and promoted burgeoning talent in her Upper East Side gallery in the 1940s (representing Alfonso Ossorio, Theodoros Stamos, and Hedda Sterne); in the 1950s, Leo Castelli provided stipends and established satellite dealers worldwide, representing Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Robert Rauschenberg. The world of art dealing exploded in the 1970s, when Larry Gagosian evolved from struggling poster salesman in L.A. into the world’s most powerful and controversial art dealer, poaching artists, selling art on the secondary market, and establishing galleries around the world. Other galleries followed his lead, and the price of art rose so high that, for many collectors, art became an even more lucrative investment than stocks. Focusing on personalities as much as business development, Shnayerson’s writing is conversational and accessible, even for those without deep art knowledge. Fast-paced and eye-opening, this is a wildly entertaining business history.

Starred review from March 1, 2019
An inside portrait of the movers and shakers of modern art.In this hefty, meticulously researched history, Vanity Fair contributing editor Shnayerson (The Contender: Andrew Cuomo, a Biography, 2015, etc.) recounts the absorbing story of "how a coterie of dealers made a global market for contemporary art." He opens with the rise of abstract expressionism and the "rather modest and uncertain beginnings" of galleries in the late 1940s, and he ends with the "wildly unpredictable financial roller coaster" of today. From the start, the author realized he would need to talk to the "art market's four most powerful figures": Arne Glimcher, Iwan Wirth, David Zwirner, and the "undisputed mega of megas," Larry Gagosian. He did, along with numerous other dealers, critics, and collectors, and these conversations give the book an exquisite intimacy and air of excitement. Along the way, Shnayerson learned that "nobody really needs a painting," as one dealer told him. "It's an act of collective faith what an object is worth." Dealers make "sure that important art feels important" and worth the investment. In 1957, Leo Castelli, the "greatest dealer of his day," opened his gallery and "let his art sell itself." His clients were a who's who of the time: de Kooning, Rauschenberg, Pollock, Johns, Lichtenstein, and, later, Warhol. In 1979, Gagosian opened his first New York gallery, offering Cy Twombly and David Salle. Glimcher soon followed. In 1980, Glimcher "startled the art world" by selling Johns' Three Flags for $1 million, and Gagosian continued to battle with the "brilliant, but drug-troubled, Basquiat." Shnayerson incisively describes dealers poaching from each other, recessions negatively affecting markets, how galleries and auction houses operate, and Instagram's emerging role in selling art. The narrative is packed with scrumptious anecdotes and revealing portraits of key players and artists. For example, for every two paintings Agnes Martin offered Glimcher, she'd destroy 10 while he watched.In this rich, superbly nuanced history, Shnayerson fully demonstrates that he has his finger on the financial pulse of modern art.

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