David Zwirner, who's often described as the world's most powerful gallerist, reflects on his gallery's recent expansion to Asia
Gallerist David Zwirner has had a busy start to 2018. He’s opened his Hong Kong gallery–his first space in Asia–and announced he’s building a new gallery in New York, a 50,000-square-foot building costing him roughly US$50million. And that was all before the end of January.
As he prepares to open an exhibition of work by Wolfgang Tillmans at his new Hong Kong gallery, Zwirner reflects on his expansion into Asia and reveals which artists he’s bringing to Art Basel in Hong Kong.
When you opened your Hong Kong gallery at the end of January, you flew 25 artists and their families to the opening. Why?
We were celebrating two things in January. We were celebrating the opening of the new gallery but we were also celebrating the gallery’s 25th anniversary. When I realised that, somewhat by coincidence, these two events would fall into the same month, I wanted to make a little brouhaha around it. So we had a very, very beautiful celebratory party in New York where we looked back a little bit [over our achievements]. But I’m even more excited by looking forward–and that of course is what’s happening in Hong Kong.
I invited the artists because I really wanted the artists to be part of this next chapter. I wanted them to see the space, imagine their work in the space, imagine their work in Hong Kong and also make sure we can introduce them to our folks here: our friends and our collectors.