Pace Gallery, a mega gallery with seven locations worldwide, is laying off some 50 staff and dropping about 50 artists.
In a statement to ARTnews Thursday, CEO Marc Glimcher said that the gallery will now focus its roster on 85 artists, after growing to 135 and will “continue to be a global gallery” with plans to “ground their programs in the character of the local art scene.”
“Galleries need a model correction,” he said. “For Pace, this means returning to our roots, recentering and reasserting our historic mission: We’re going back to the future, connecting younger artists to their spiritual fathers and mothers, focusing on a group of around 80 artists, which represents an intergenerational mix of new and established artists and estates.”
The news of the layoffs was first reported by the New York Times on Wednesday night. However, sources at Pace told ARTnews that the Times story ran early, before the gallery had actually conducted the layoffs, leading to confusion amongst gallery staff. A town hall is planned for 9 a.m. Thursday morning.
In the Times story, Glimcher blamed an art system that has become “too big, too commercial, too impersonal, and too corporate.” “We all know it’s true,” he went on. “But you actually have to do something to adapt to it. You have to make some substantial changes.” An accompanying photograph shows Glimcher holding the viewer’s gaze, his right hand outstretched on the desk, clenched in a tight fist.
