The Wall Street Journal - 04.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Wednesday, March 4, 2020 |A

LIFE & ARTS

Mahler, whose “Symphony of a

Thousand” brings down the cur-

tain on what will likely be known

as the MTT era.

Though it was widely assumed

at the start that this marriage of

conductor and orchestra had pos-

sibilities, few could have expected

it either to succeed or to endure

as it has. Once upon a time, quar-

ter-century tenures were not un-

usual. Serge Koussevitzky trans-

formed the Boston Symphony over

25 seasons, just as George Szell ef-

fectively created the Cleveland Or-

chestra in a similar span. Eugene

Ormandy gave Philadelphia 44

years, but that’s a record for this
type of symbiosis.
More recent musical unions of
such duration have tended to gen-
erate at least some controversy.
Seiji Ozawa’s 29 years in Boston
struck many observers as far too
long. And Franz Welser-Möst’s res-
idency in Cleveland, which began
in 2002 and is currently con-
tracted through 2027, has earned
decidedly mixed notices.
But not so Mr. Thomas and San
Francisco, whose first collabora-
tion dates to 1974. Though not ev-
ery review has been stellar, natu-
PAUL MAROTTA/GETTY IMAGES rally, this team has delivered

Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony, in 2018

CULTURAL COMMENTARY

A Career Filled With

High Notes

both their expenses and revenues

from fairs as equivalent to running

a gallery.”

With so many options, even

choosing which fairs to apply to is

a logistical nightmare. Then, once

accepted, dealers usually need to

sell roughly three times the total

cost of attendance to make things

worth it, and with so much initial

investment on the line—often fi-

nanced by credit—missing your

numbers can have dire conse-

quences. Add a dose of the unex-

pected to an already precarious sit-

uation—the cancellation of this

year’s Art Basel Hong Kong because

of worries about the new coronavi-

rus is just the most recent exam-

ple—and it’s easy to say that it’s

never been more difficult to keep a

small or midsize gallery alive.

Galleries have been rethinking

their relationship with fairs and

even their most basic business

practices as a result. Marianne

Boesky is taking her eponymous

efits to some fairs, she added that

“the risk to any small-scale gallery,

if you do a fair and you’re not sell-

ing out your booth, is

huge....they’re really so terrifying,

so prohibitively expensive, and the

risks are way too high.”

Art fairs aren’t going anywhere

soon. So, unsexy as it may be to

look at this creative realm through a

market lens, it’s an indispensable

perspective to take when looking at

an art world that is on the precipice

of changing into something beyond

recognition, where salability out-

paces creativity in the name of gal-

lery survival, and high prices and in-

accessibility turn off young

collectors who might have become

lasting patrons. How ironic it would

be, then, if a system that gained

traction to help galleries ends up

undoing them.

Mr. Kelly is the Journal’s associate

Arts in Review editor. Follow him on

Twitter @bpkelly89.

space to ADAA’s Art Show and the

Independent fair this year after

having been an annual participant

at the Armory for over a decade,

explaining that being able to focus

on growing the profile of some of

the artists she represents outweighs

the benefits of the well-heeled

crowd—and associated expenses—

at the main fair. Robert Walden, co-

director of Robert Henry Contempo-

rary, which recently closed its

storefront in Brooklyn, has partici-

pated in over 20 fairs, domestically

and abroad, but won’t be showing

atanyof the fairs during Armory

week because he says it doesn’t

make financial sense any more.

Even shifting strategies don’t

ensure a gallery’s continued viabil-

ity. Financial pressure led Koenig &

Clinton to close last month. Marga-

ret Liu Clinton, in an interview

with Hyperallergic, cited fair pric-

ing as one of the aggravating fac-

tors that undid the space. And

while she noted that there are ben-

New York

TO THE CASUALobserver, the art

world might look healthier than

ever. Names as disparate as Warhol

and Michelangelo continue to draw

visitors to blockbuster shows, mu-

seums are expanding and opening

new locations designed by top ar-

chitects, and eye-bulging auction

prices continue apace. But with the

biggest week in the New York art

scene upon us, the whirlwind of

fairs anchored by the massive Ar-

mory Show, it’s worth looking just

below the surface. There, you’ll find

market forces at work that threaten

to break the artistic supply chain

that shapes much of the art world

we interact with.

Outside the world of fairs, much

of the postwar primary art market

takes the form of sales at small,

midsize and large galleries, all in-

terconnected in the ecosystem of

the creative marketplace. While

there’s no hard-and-fast rubric for

classifying galleries, the factors

that determine their status include

annual revenue, staff size, depth

and prestige of their roster of art-

ists, location(s) and reputation.

They exist along a spectrum, with

the ubiquitous international mega-

dealers (e.g. Gagosian, David

Zwirner) on top and bootstrapped,

hole-in-the-wall operations with

little cachet beyond their neighbor-

hoods at the bottom.

In this world, emerging artists

typically begin their careers exhibit-

ing at small and medium-size gal-

leries, leveraging success into

higher prices (and occasionally

more prestigious representation)

and museum acquisitions—a path to

success that could also be mirrored

on the dealer side. At the same

time, younger and middle-class col-

lectors have access to art, buying

works from newish talent at smaller

spaces even if they are priced out of

works by marquee names repped by

the glitziest sellers. These introduc-

tions at lower price points have

been crucial in sowing seeds among

a creative class that would grow

into lifelong collectors, and also al-

lowed the different segments of the

market to thrive.

Art fairs have changed all this.

It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly

when the era of ubiquitous interna-

tional fairs began, but they have

been a fixture of the art market for

at least 20 years, in part as a way

to help galleries compete against

the newly energized auction

houses in an increasingly global-

ized world. In 2000, there were

about 55 of them. By 2018, the

most recent year with reliable

numbers as cited in the annual Art

Basel and UBS Art Market report,

there were close to 300.

With this explosion of fairs, gal-

leries have become dependent on

them for sales. The report explains

that “art fair sales were estimated

to have reached $16.5 billion in

2018,” continuing to note that, glob-

ally, fair sales and gallery sales are

now nearly equal.

These numbers obfuscate a

darker reality: the deleterious effect

of art fairs on small and medium-

size galleries. While the hard num-

bers are difficult to track, an ART-

news story from 2017 cited 31

notable gallery closures in just the

previous year. To compare, from

2012-15 there were only about 12

analogous closures. Additionally, ac-

cording to Basel/UBS, new gallery

openings are at their lowest point

in at least a decade. The causes of

the disappearance of these players

are numerous—skyrocketing rents

in art centers, changing attitudes

that tend to see art as an invest-

ment instead of an end in and of it-

self. And there’s plenty of anecdotal

evidence among gallerists about

their struggles. But the art-fair

model plays a singular, outsize role,

bleeding the small and midsize gal-

leries dry.

According to a 2018 Art News-

paper story, booths at the Armory

show can range from $10,000 to

over $100,000. On top of booth

space there are application fees

costing hundreds of dollars, ship-

ping and insurance costs, travel,

lodging and often entertainment

expenses. This matches the claims

in the Basel/UBS report of dealers

who “compared the magnitude of

CULTURAL COMMENTARY

The High Cost

Of Art Fairs

Small and midsize art galleries increasingly

find themselves subject to the law

of unintended consequences

Pascale Marthine Tayou’s ‘Plastic Bags’ on display at 2019’s Armory Show in New York

BYBRIANP.KELLY

The art-fair model plays

a singular, outsize role

in bleeding the small and

midsize galleries dry.

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

San Francisco

WHENMichael Tilson Thomas be-

came music director of this city’s

estimable but not very exciting or

forward-looking symphony orches-

tra in 1995, he had been working in

London and needed an American

career boost, and the ensemble was

looking for an energetic maestro

who would elevate its profile and

maybe even lend it “buzz.”

A quarter-century later, their

partnership stands as one of the

great success stories in U.S. musi-

cal history, thanks in large part to

Mr. Thomas’s searching intellect,

fierce curiosity, and supreme rep-

ertorial fluency. His direct connec-

tion to musical history, unmatched

in our time, hasn’t hurt, either. As

a result, the 109-year-old San

Francisco Symphony is now widely

regarded as among this country’s

finest orchestras—right up there

with East Coast titans like the New

York Philharmonic, the Boston

Symphony Orchestra and the Phil-

adelphia Orchestra. West of Chi-

cago, only the Los Angeles Philhar-

monic challenges San Francisco’s

dominance.

But nothing lasts forever, and

Mr. Thomas, who turned 75 just

before Christmas, is midway

through his last season at the

helm. Fittingly, the exit music, as

it were, hearkens back to past tri-

umphs. On Friday, Mr. Thomas and

the orchestra will perform Mah-

ler’s Symphony No. 6 here, and

music by Stravinsky, Shostakovich

and Mr. Thomas himself comes the

following week. (Mr. Thomas and

the orchestra will take the Mahler

and most of the Stravinsky pro-

gram to Carnegie Hall in New York

on March 17 and 18.) But not till

May and June does the long good-

bye kick into high gear, when

some favorite soloists, like the pi-

anist Yuja Wang and the violinists

Anne-Sophie Mutter and Gil Sha-

ham, join Mr. Thomas and the or-

chestra for programs featuring

Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner,

as well as more Shostakovich and

consistently rewarding perfor-

mances marked by programming

that ably mixes the familiar with

the adventurous. And when the

music is widely known, Mr.

Thomas and his players have often

invested it with enough originality

that it feels newly minted. A per-

formance of Schumann’s “Spring”

Symphony in February 2015 was

one such case. It was imbued with

such vigor and novel phrasing as

to make me wonder whether I had

ever really heard the piece before.

A compact disc of that perfor-

mance is available on the SFS Me-

dia label, which was founded in

2001 and whose catalog now con-

tains 34 releases. Mr. Thomas

played a significant role in pio-

neering the self-produced method

that has kept recordings of U.S.

orchestras available while major

record labels have lost interest in

such content. The latest release is

a superb pairing of American

hymns with Charles Ives’s ground-

breaking Third and Fourth Sym-

phonies. (A valedictory album of

music composed by Mr. Thomas is

forthcoming.)

Ives’s music, along with that of

other so-called American Maver-

icks—like Lou Harrison, Henry

Cowell and Carl Ruggles—has been

a mainstay for Mr. Thomas and the

San Franciscans. In his early years

with the symphony, such scores

were a notable pillar of the con-

ductor’s invigorating concert pro-

gramming. One hallmark of Mr.

Thomas’s tenure in this city has

been his fidelity to a core group of

composers who have always meant

much to him. Along with the

Americans already mentioned,

pride of place goes to Mahler and

Stravinsky (whom a young Mr.

Thomas knew well during the Rus-

sian composer’s dotage) as well as

Beethoven and the still very active

John Adams.

“Beethoven is a real person to

me—Mahler, too,” Mr. Thomas said

to me in January following a sym-

phony rehearsal, over salads at his

kitchen table in this city’s Pacific

Heights neighborhood. “I’m look-

ing to have as personal a relation-

ship with a long-dead composer as

I do with those who are living.”

After 25 years, Mr. Thomas’s

mark on this ensemble is unmis-

takable. He has hired 50 of its 108

players, and he has demonstrably

honed the orchestra’s technical

precision. But his most lasting im-

print may extend beyond the doors

of Davies Symphony Hall, the or-

chestra’s imperfect but beloved

home since 1980. For this conduc-

tor has made classical concertgo-

ing a defining aspect of life in San

Francisco—something plainly evi-

dent at the September gala that

marked the opening of his final

season, when luminaries from

across the city, including the

mayor, the police chief and senior

executives from all four of the

area’s major-league sports fran-

chises, paid onstage homage to Mr.

Thomas. (House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi and California Gov. Gavin

Newsome also participated in the

festivities.)

“I’ve expanded the definition of

what classical music can be,” Mr.

Thomas said, musing on his legacy

after our meal. “Being on stage at

Davies feels like my living room.”

The transition to a new music

director will be as seamless as

such things can be thanks to the

surprise selection of Esa-Pekka Sa-

lonen, who assumes the job in Sep-

tember. His 17-year tenure in Los

Angeles redefined that city’s or-

chestra, and his term in San Fran-

cisco will likely prove special in its

own way. But he will be 62 years

old when he takes over and is al-

most certain not to serve anywhere

near as long as Mr. Thomas has.

Mr. Thomas’s legacy, though,

can only partly be attributed to

his longevity in the job. Occupy-

ing time and space does not alone

guarantee impact. But his durable

mark on San Francisco, both the

orchestra and the city, will re-

sound for years to come.

Mr. Mermelstein writes for

the Journal on film and

classical music.

BYDAVIDMERMELSTEIN