Power 100
one.linzero.lin
David Zwirner
Category: Gallerist
Nationality: American
Last Year: 16
David Zwirner’s gigantic 19th Street gallery in Chelsea is more like three galleries
in one, which is apt, given that Zwirner himself has the air of someone three
times as capable as your average dealer. The son of legendary Cologne dealer
Rudolf Zwirner, David has inherited Zwirner père’s talent and good taste (Rudolf
showed artists such as Warhol and Ed Ruscha in the 1960s), though David
Zwirner’s roster suggests a greater affinity for formalism, and in recent years,
painting – with shows by Luc Tuymans, Lisa Yuskavage and Michaël Borremans.
Zwirner maintains partnerships in Europe, particularly with the German gallerist
Iwan Wirth, with whom he runs the uptown gallery Zwirner & Wirth in Manhattan,
an influential player in the secondary market.
David Zwirner gallery began the year with an exhibition of large-scale
sculpture by some equally large-scaled artists, including Franz West, Carl Andre
and Mark di Suvero. Then came a parade of shows offering significant new
works by Stan Douglas, Toba Khedoori and Francis Alÿs. But it is the strength
of Zwirner’s artists beyond the gallery’s walls that has propelled his operation to
new heights. Isa Genzken represented Germany at the Venice Biennale (while
the late Jason Rhoades, also a Zwirner artist, had an installation in the Arsenale)
and, two weeks later, opened an installation of her trademark umbrella sculptures
at Kaspar König’s Skulptur Projekte Münster. The Leipzig painter Neo Rauch
was commissioned to create and exhibit a suite of paintings for the Metropolitan
Museum of Art (not the first institution that comes to mind when thinking about
contemporary offerings); the elusive and indomitable Alÿs will have twin shows
next autumn at the Dia Art Foundation in New York and the Hammer Museum
in LA; and 2006 Turner Prize-winner Tomma Abts will be one of the first artists
featured at the new New Museum when it opens this winter in New York.
Though Zwirner moved to Chelsea in 2002 and greatly expanded its space
in 2006, he still owns the SoHo space where he first began his gallery, in 1993.
The groundfloor houses the shop of his wife, the handbag designer Monica
Zwirner, and he lets the first floor out as the atelier of gallery artist Marcel Dzama
– leaving open suspicions that he might one day open a second off-site space.
ARTREVIEW one.linzero.lineight.lin
power 100_Layout 1-10.indd 108 29/9/07 16:00:57
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