"The rules of artist representation are up for grabs in today's nervously experimental market. In August, a month that brought us the merry-go-round mini-drama of Jeff Koons's return to Gagosian from Pace Gallery, having left Gagosian for them in 2021, came too a surprising email announcement from a US public relations firm, titled "Tom Sachs: Now Represented by The Lede Company"."
"The body of the email clarifies that this is an "agency representation" and its small print notes that Thaddaeus Ropac "will continue to represent Tom Sachs for all gallery and fine art inquiries", a relationship that has been in place since 1998. The Lede Company may have overblown a fairly standard-and, thanks to Sachs ending his contract and moving to a different agency, short-lived-PR role, but the brief additional representation still begs the question: where does a gallery end and an agency begin?"
The rules of artist representation are shifting in an experimental market. Jeff Koons moved between major galleries in August, and Tom Sachs gained brief agency representation from a US PR firm, The Lede Company, while Thaddaeus Ropac continues gallery and fine-art representation since 1998. The PR role centers on promoting brand collaborations, such as a Levi's collaboration and a long-standing Nike partnership that included a lifestyle app tied to the Mars Yard 3.0 trainers (retail $275). Such commercial activity contrasts with Sachs's earlier conceptual works like an Hermés hand grenade, a Chanel-branded guillotine, and the 1998 Tiffany Value Meal (auction record $302,400).
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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