Art world shocked as British painter Damien Hirst leaves 'uber-dealer' Gagosian
Painter becomes latest top artist to leave Gagosian's stable - and picture emerges of artist's declining sales and industry's struggles
They seemed like the perfect match. On one side, Larry Gagosian, the world's most powerful art dealer, whose eponymous gallery earns more than US$1 billion a year and exhibits the likes of Picasso, Matisse and Warhol to rival the greatest museums.
On the other, Damien Hirst, the world's most successful living artist, who has amassed a fortune of £215 million (HK$2.7 billion).
So Hirst's sudden departure after 17 years from Gagosian's blockbuster roster of 77 artists and estates - a year after Gagosian mounted an unprecedented simultaneous exhibition of the artist's spot paintings in each of his then 11 galleries worldwide, and co-sponsored a Tate Modern retrospective - has raised questions about their careers and about the contemporary art market itself.
In addition to taking part in the global Hirst show, Gagosian's Hong Kong gallery was inaugurated in Pedder Street with an exhibition of Hirst's work in 2011.
The economist Don Thompson, author of The $12 Million Stuffed Shark, which investigated the contemporary art market, including Gagosian's 2005 sale of Hirst's best-known formaldehyde work, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, believes the gallerist initiated the split due to Hirst's declining sales.
Figures published by market analyst Artnet last November show that works Hirst produced in his most lucrative period between 2005 and 2008, when he bypassed his dealers and took his work direct to auction at Sotheby's, had resold for far less than their original purchase price. Since 2009, one in three of the 1,700 pieces offered at auction has failed to sell at all.