New Viewing Rooms: Studio and Exceptional Works

With physical exhibition spaces closed to the public, auction houses inactive, and art fairs canceled, David Zwirner Online is pleased to debut two new digital products—Studio and Exceptional Works—for museums and collectors to discover, buy, and sell primary- and secondary-market artworks.

“For years, David Zwirner Gallery has been a regular at more than 20 art fairs around the globe—that is, until the current global health situation put these events, and nearly everything else in the art world, on lockdown. Now, the gallery is developing a new program to promote artworks that it might otherwise show at fairs on its own website.

As part of its ongoing efforts to beef up its digital offerings, the gallery is rolling out two initiatives in the middle of April. The first, called Studio, will showcase a rotating presentation of one to three brand-new works by artists the gallery represents.

The second initiative, Exceptional Works, focuses on the secondary market. Designed to present one major work at a time, it will kick off with a Josef Albers “Homage to the Square” painting from 1959, consigned from the collection of Theodore and Barbara Dreier, the founders of the legendary Black Mountain College, where Albers taught. 

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Unlike Studio, which will be accessible to anyone who agrees to submit their email address, Exceptional Works will exclusively be available to existing gallery clients on an invitation-only basis. Prices will also only be relayed upon request.

Both initiatives in large part aim to make up for the fact that the lockdown era has interrupted a critical part of the art-market supply chain. Under normal circumstances, one-off or small groups of works that do not comprise a full exhibition would be showcased at an art fair. And even though the art industry’s traveling circus has been put on pause, artists are still creating work—in fact, some more than ever, as they are cloistered at home and in their studios—and consignors are still looking for places to sell high-priced works (particularly since most of the major auction houses have delayed their marquee spring sales to June).’’

Read the full article in Artnet news

Image: Carol Bove, 2019. Photo by Jason Schmidt