Blue-chip art dealer Marian Goodman is overhauling her gallery’s structure with a new corporate chain of command and hints of a potential succession plan.
The veteran dealer announced today that she is bringing on five new partners and stepping into the role of C.E.O. Philipp Kaiser, an art historian who joined the gallery in 2019 as chief executive director of artists and programs, will become the gallery’s president and partner. Executive directors Emily-Jane Kirwan, Rose Lord, Leslie Nolen, and Junette Teng, have also been named partners.
“The creation of this partnership will allow my vision and rigorous program to continue to thrive,” Goodman, who is 93, said in a statement. “Preserving my roster and continuing to take on artists interested in a humanistic concern, a culture-critical sense of our way of life, a dialectical approach toward reality, and artistic vision about our urban structure is important to me.”
Last fall, Goodman closed her London outpost citing “uncertainty” in the art market brought on by the pandemic as well as Brexit. The gallery continues to operate spaces in Paris and New York.
Goodman is not the only gallery to adopt a more corporate structure in recent years. In 2019, Gagosian brought on former gallery director Andrew Fabricant into a newly established post of chief operating officer, as well as a 24-member advisory board. Last fall, Hauser and Wirth hired department store executive Ewan Venters as its C.E.O. The growing trend shows perhaps just how extreme the financial stratification has become between blue-chip galleries and the rest.
The gallery declined to comment on whether the restructure is part of a succession plan for Goodman, or if the effects of the pandemic played a role.
As part of the new organization, the gallery has also created an advisory committee, which includes Elaine Budin in New York, Aebhric Coleman in London, and Nicolas Nahab in Paris. The gallery’s director of finance, Beatrice Wang-Coslick, and its director of communications and events, Linda Pellegrini, will also be on the committee.
“My partners and I together will carry forward the mission that I have worked so hard to achieve,” Goodman said in the statement.
The gallery, which represents numerous high-profile artists, including Tino Sehgal, Tony Cragg, Chantal Ackerman, and Gerhard Richter, will participate in a slew of fairs this fall, including Art Basel, FIAC, and Frieze Masters.