How I became an art dealer.

Robert Longo, Untitled, 1978, Private Collection NY

By MICHAEL KLEIN November 29, 2024

What follows is map of a career looking back now 47 years. It is hard to believe what I accomplished as an independent entrepreneur and true lover of art. In those years the business was about patronage not investments.

It began with a white lie that turned into a four decade career that put me in the middle of the contemporary art world. After graduating the masters program in art history at Williams the possibilities were open and many; I had turned down an offer to finish my PhD with Sam Hunter at Princeton. Everyone said no, not possible, to get a job in New York, but I was, as I am always, determined to achieve my goals.

At the same time I had also just closed my first curatorial project a museum exhibition Four Artists It included then four emerging artists: Alice
Adams, Alice Aycock, Jackie Ferrara and Mary Miss. Later it was Ferrara who introduces me to her dealer Max Protetch…he had just closed his
gallery in Soho hoping to move uptown. After a brief interview he offers me job as Director - but for the first year we work out of his apartment on W 58th St. while he negotiates a space on 57th St. We open in the fall of 1977 with a group show including Ferrara, David Reed and Will
Insley among others.

I thought it important that as dealer I also make use of my talents as a teacher and curator. I started writing for Richard Martin then Editor of Arts Magazine. My first piece was on Jonathan Borofsky, others followed over the years including Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince and the painters John McLaughlin and Frank Auerbach. I also published articles and reviews in Artnews and Art in America. And as for teaching, was introduced to Jeane Siegal at the School of Visual Arts and taught a survey of art history course there.

As Director I brought several artists to gallery including Mary Miss, Richard Fleischner and Siah Armajani. Armajani and I knew each other from years working at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis where he lived and worked. Pat Steir joined the gallery too. why not famous yet? I asked.  "No one has tried!" she exclaimed… sold her first painting a large abstract diptych she brought in the gallery to AT&T and we began a 12 year working relationship. She later introduced me to other artists such as Mary Heilmann, Jene Highstein and Ulay/Marina Abramovic.

Jackie Ferrara, A139, 1975,Courtesy of the artist

A big shift came with my group show at my gallery Michael Klein Inc. - Re-Figuration opened, with a majority of the works going to British collector Charles Saatchi. Included were Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman and Laurie Simmons. Opening in December of 1979 it introduced a new generation rejecting conceptual and minimal art and all forms of abstract painting - looking again at the figure and narratives and how commercial media impacts the fine arts.

Outside curatorial projects included a show for the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati Ohio, Tableau:Nine Contemporary Sculptors including Paul Thek. Sculpture from Germany for Independent Curators Inc with Rebecca Horn and Franz Erhard Walther that opened in San Francisco and travelled in the US and Canada and Sculpture Object and Artiface. The exhibition Artiface included Haim Steinbach and Jeff Koons in their first museum show for the newly opened contemporary arts museum at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

By 1982 I had l turned 30 and left the Protetch Gallery to work on my own as an agent for artists. I was featured in the New York Times in an article about artist’s agents along with an article by Tsipi Ben Heim in Sculpture Magazine. On my own, I sold work by Ken Goodman; William Garbe; James Casebere; Robin Wiliams; Paul Thek and Steir - all from my apartment on 104th St. Eventually I decided on an office space on Broadway and Houston St. I could present work there, though did not at first imagine a regular gallery schedule instead presentations of work: a Robin Winters installation of drawing tables and glass vases; Matt Mullican rubbings that eventually traveled to other venues and large scale polaroids by Ulay and Marina.

Siah Armajani, Limit Bridge 1, 1973, Private Collection NY

One artist led to another via friendships recommendations and suggestions. Mondays were reserved for studio visits for many years. As my business grew solid, our space and our participation in art fairs and press occurred with many reviews in the New York Times and the various art magazines. You can find reviews of Dona Nelson, Kate Ericson/Mel Ziegler, Elaine Reichek, Beverly Semmes and the Malcolm Morley works on paper show.

In the late 80s I opened a space in Amsterdam in order to work in the European market. Pat Steir, Williams and Ulay and Marina had studios there so it made sense. But the first major sale was a glass commission by Mullican for the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague. At the same time in New York, I presented two British artists: Alan Charlton and Ian Hamilton Finlay and also the early works of Bernard Frize. The gallery also acquired works by Thomas Ruff, Fischli/Weiss; Tony Cragg and Jan Vercruysse.

In the 90s we moved to a ground floor space on Wooster St. with many large scale group shows and installations by Rita McBride, Elaine Reichek and Matthew McCaslin. I also hosted many poetry jams and lectures.

The shift out of Soho for many galleries began in the mid 90s and rather than move again we closed in 1996. This ended with two shows in the fall of that year. Semmes and Ferrara both got reviewed everywhere and both by Grace Glueck in the New York Times. WM