The crisis in the art market, and especially the so-called middle market squeeze that is currently driving midsize galleries out of business, have come up so often in recent years that they've turned into near-cliches. But the art market—and the way art gets sold—is genuinely undergoing a profound shift. Measured against the last few decades, when the business model mostly tracked economic cycles, some experience this change as decline. Yet—and here comes a real truism—nothing is as constant as change.
Emanuel Layr, one of the most respected Viennese gallerists, talks to Monopol about a step that will surprise many.
Emanuel Layr, you founded a gallery in Vienna with Thomas Wüstenhagen in 2002, which you've run alone since 2011. In 2022, you moved into new, larger premises. You regularly take part in international fairs, including Art Basel at its various locations, soon in Paris. Now you're changing your model of art dealing.
We started as a project space in 2002, then opened as a gallery in Vienna in 2005. Since 2011, it's just been Layr. What a journey it's been. After a good 20 years running the gallery, my team and I are trying to find a new path.
Can you describe how you want to reposition yourself, and what matters most to you in doing so?
The gallery model as we know it is increasingly hitting its limits. For us, that's reason enough to look for new paths and keep developing. We want to consciously break free from the automatisms of an increasingly dense fair, logistics, and exhibition schedule, and put our time and energy where they can do the most good.
Where would that be?
Going forward, we'll pool our commercial and curatorial expertise into our own and collaborative projects, with artists as well as for and with private and public collections and institutions. Our work is becoming more dynamic and decentralized. Presentations of works, events, and dialogue formats will now take place at various locations, occasionally in our new premises on Vienna's Ringstraße as well. To us, self-determination means actively shaping the conditions of our own work. Over 20 years running a gallery, we've accompanied artists, let them inspire us, learned from them. We've grown together, built relationships, staged countless exhibitions, taken part in fairs, and actively helped shape the international art world. Along the way, we've kept reflecting on the conditions of our work and rethinking our activities. Two decades of work, encounters, and friendships tie us to the gallery as we've run it so far—with artists, collectors, colleagues, staff, and institutions alike. We're carrying that history with us into the future.
Since when have you been thinking about this step, and how long did you spend preparing it in concrete terms?
I started thinking about it more seriously around the end of last year. It took shape in the spring. What matters is that financial reasons played no role in it. We're not doing badly on that front, but the workload kept growing, and so did the pressure. The quality started to suffer, across the board. So something had to change.
What happens now?
This fall, we'll still do the fairs Art Basel Paris, Artissima in Turin, and Art 021 in Shanghai. It remains to be seen where you can still plug directly into the classic structures that galleries require, once you let go of the label "gallery." So far, this has met with a lot of interest and openness, especially from certain artists and collections. The current exhibition of "Curated by Vienna" will be our final show at this location. At the same time, the first projects and exhibitions are already getting underway, and we'll be sharing more about those in the coming months.
So the "new premises" on Vienna's Ringstraße will end up being a gallery again after all—or how should we picture your operation going forward?
No, these are no longer fully public spaces. There will be offices on one side, and on the other, two generous rooms for meetings, that are accessible by invitation. Think of it a bit like the old salons. There will definitely be room for substantive exchange there too.
Will you keep working with all the artists on your roster?
Of course, that matters a great deal to me. But as equals. For projects, outside exhibitions, and, when it fits, for entirely different things too. That can happen together with institutions, but also with other galleries. The roles can vary: advocate, producer, fundraiser… Every project should be handled individually. We'll keep dealing in art. But we also want to make that more focused and highly selective again. This isn't anything new—good galleries do exactly that—but having the luxury of approaching it in a more reduced, more focused way interests me. Treating a work by a younger artist the same way as a very expensive, classic work by, say, Richard Prince. Classic art dealing is something very beautiful and direct, as long as you handle it responsibly and bring your own passion to it.
Are fair participations still planned?
Not for now. But there's so much in motion. I really appreciate that Art Basel has opened up its participation requirements when it comes to a fixed location and artist roster. That's an important step in a direction that reflects the very different characters of gallerists, who operate and think in such different ways. That awareness is necessary, because there are and will keep being more and more different ways of thinking.
Personally, though, I'm very interested in projects like Basel Social Club, because there, categorizations basically don't play much of a role, and given the strong curatorial focus, it's almost more accurate to speak of exhibition formats. At the same time, I don't feel like this excludes the art trade, or the market, at all. On the contrary—I see a rather pleasurable way of engaging with it in this context.
How do you view the art world in its current form? Do you consider it a dying model?
That's not easy to answer. I've chosen a new path for myself, one where I'll get to work more closely with artists and art again. Hopefully also with people who see it similarly. In a volatile market situation, certain things come to the surface more clearly, and I think this is actually a good moment to take a closer look.
What new formats can you imagine?
Even if it doesn't sound wildly innovative at first glance, small things can change a lot. In my current situation—I've benefited from the classic structures too—it's about slowing down. Fewer but more intensive phases for artists and projects, above all with the time and attention that will hopefully then be more available as resources. Right now, I'm trying to read a lot about the relationship between artists and art dealers before the 1980s.