The Metropolis

NY art gallery Pace will move into the Royal Academy, chasing London's artists and super rich

Mike Pollitt | Wednesday 4 July, 2012 11:03

New York art gallery Pace will move into the Royal Academy, reports Gallerist NY. The exhibition space will open in October with a Mark Rothko and Hiroshi Sugimoto show.

Why is London somewhere Pace wants to expand? It’s not about you or me.

Artinfo.com spoke to Marc Glimcher, Pace’s president:

“London is a place where citizens of certain regions come to really live, not just to visit,” Glimcher said, when asked about the city’s appeal as an art market. “Just look at the nationalities of the kids in English schools. People from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia, and India — they are all committed to London.”

These are the global rich, the 1%ers. They buy the art, and London has a lot of them.

It also has a lot of artists. Again, from Artinfo:

““There certainly is fierce competition over artists,” [Glimcher] said. “It’s become extremely brutal, and for a small group of galleries, having a space in another city gives them a foothold that they will try and utilize with the artists” — in other words, to poach them.”

This isn’t art. It’s business.

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