Lévy Gorvy, the gallery

What we do see ourselves as is a boutique, a haute-couture gallery that ultimately adapts itself and takes advantage of market changes and opportunities but is very sustained and has growth over a longer period of time.

It’s incredibly important to Dominique and myself that we are an individual company. We’ve committed ourselves financially to this project with the understanding that we can work with any business partner where it will be mutually beneficial, with no conflict of interest.

It will also be about painting, because what we really responded to in Dan’s studio is that he’s returning to his roots in a way that’s very much to our own tastes, where it’s less about the conceptual pieces and more about just really beautiful painting.

The only way these kinds of shows can be feasible is if you have a financial commitment and also a focus, which is how this kind of gallery works. Here I mean less from a purely curatorial aspect, and more curatorial in that it’s highly focused on our client base from a business point of view, and on the art-collecting sphere we feel very close to.

Auction background

Working at an auction house is a phenomenal training, obviously—you have access to great art, you have access to an amazing group of collectors who become your friends, and you learn how to work as a team, which is incredibly important within this environment. But you also learn ultimately how to understand the valuation of works of art and price them.

… because of our strong auction background, we have very close ties with now all three auction houses. That gives us an understanding of how markets work and how values work, because we can dissect the results of the auctions at all three houses and know exactly what happened.

Art fairs

If you look at how an art fair can ultimately change, communication will be a large part of it. … So now they’re going to have to get to the fair in the first half hour, because that’s when these things happen. … The key is to get someone as committed as they would be to an auction picture, to the point where the only thing they need to do is see it physically, which is obviously a crucial part.

Asia

I’ve done a lot of work in Asia over the years, and we want to continue our position there. We believe very firmly in the strength of the market there, not just in China but all over Asia, and, having worked there, you know all of the nuances, and who are the people to deal with.

So, from our point of view, Hong Kong is where we’ll have the best access to the top collectors who we can ultimately develop. One of the most exciting aspects about Asia is that the learning curve of Asian collectors is phenomenal. I’ve never come across that speed of understanding markets and artists and desiring to learn more and read more.

And in Hong Kong too—we really need an office in Hong Kong in order to function, because a lot of clients want to have a base outside of mainland China, either because they want to have their assets outside of the mainland or because they prefer that way of buying. It’s like with a lot of West Coast collectors in America—they prefer to come to New York to buy, even if it’s from a dealer who has a gallery out on the West Coast. People buy more when they’re traveling.

See:

“Former Christie’s Rainmaker Brett Gorvy on How He’s Creating a New Power Center in the Gallery World” | Andrew Goldstein, Artnet, 12 June 2017

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