Peter Hay Halpert ââ“ Collector Private Art Dealer and Curator

Peter Hay Halpert: collector and individual dealer of contemporary photography in New York

What is your chore, what does information technology mean, and what does it entail on a 24-hour interval-to-solar day ground?

Commonly what I would say is that I'm a private art dealer, specializing in immature and emerging contemporary artists working with photography and video. Most all of our artists have moved into video likewise. It's a natural segue from photography to video. Only we don't handle painting, sculpture, or drawing. Nosotros represent a group of about xx artists from all over the world. We work with artists from South Africa, Nihon, the United States, Germany, France, Korea, Sweden, England, Scotland…

So the main facet of your chore is the representation of these artists?

Right, only it'south unusual for a private dealer to practise that. Unremarkably individual dealers focus on secondary marketplace textile. Exercise you understand the difference between principal and secondary?

Well I'm bold that the primary market would consist of the dealing that galleries practise.

A gallery is generally main market, they represent the artists, they showroom the artists, the effort to sell the artists. Private dealers usually handle secondary marketplace cloth, which means that once it has already been sold, and then it'southward coming back into the market. When a collector who bought an Andy Warhol wants to sell it, he might get through a private dealer. Then it has already come into the market place once, and it's now beingness re-circulated. However, what nosotros're doing is a span between those two, because although we don't accept a gallery, we practice represent artists and we are the primary market for them- information technology'southward an unusual hybrid.

How did you get to where y'all are today and what has your career path been like? Then basically, from Episcopal, how did you end up hither?

For me information technology seems that it actually was an organic development, and information technology did start at Episcopal. I took a French course at Episcopal with a teacher named Carl Denglinger. He was teaching French, merely it was besides French history and French civilization. He introduced me to the life and works of somebody named Key Richelieu, and I got very interested in him. So I went off to college; I went to Trinity College in Hartford. One of the reasons I chose Trinity was because they accept absolutely no core curriculum requirements. You lot could study annihilation you wanted, every bit long as yous met the total number of grade requirements; it was very gratuitous course. When I went there I told them that I was very interested in doing 17^th century French history, and that was going to be my focus. I wasn't interested in taking math, or science, and I wasn't fifty-fifty going to f*** around with any freshmen seminars, or annihilation similar that. Right from the start they knew they had somebody who was very focused, and not going to take a traditional undergraduate path. Out of 36 courses, I took 32 in history or art history.

So you stuck with that focus throughout college?

I was a Rhodes Scholar candidate, and a finalist, and when I was going for the Rhodes interviews, they said, "You seem very specialized, and the Rhodes Scholar is supposed to be a well-rounded scholar-athlete. How tin you justify all of these courses in history, particularly 17^th century history and art history?" I said that you lot can't study this period without having to know the history of science, the history of math. The history segued into art history as well- and architectural history. When I didn't become the Rhodes Scholarship, I decided to go to grad school, but I skipped the master's caste and went right into a doctoral programme at Brownish Academy. Again, I was focusing on 17^thursday century French history, art history, architectural history, and urban theory.

When you first decided to accept this specific focus before college, did you have a specific career in mind or was it out of pure interest?

It was pure interest and then it seemed obvious that I was headed towards an bookish career. I had causeless between the time that I left Episcopal and started at Trinity that I was going to be a professor, and take an academic route. By the time I got to the doctoral studies at Brown, I got frustrated with the bookish infighting scene, and I left that. When you're doing doctoral studies it's very much near who y'all're working with, and if you lot work mainly with a particular professor, you get hooked into mainly what he's doing inquiry on. He would then recommend yous and help you get your get-go position, and movement along the organization. I ended up existence grabbed by a professor whose material I wasn't at all interested in, so it was a bad fit. At Brown, I worked with the RISD museum in their 17^th century Dutch painting collection, so I picked up museum experience likewise. I [concluded upwards] working with this one professor, and at a certain point I wanted to get out of there. So I went into the international commodity trading business, which was a family unit business, which I am notwithstanding somewhat involved in.

What exactly is international commodity trading?

We're involved in trading physical commodities all over the earth. It'due south a business organisation that my family has been in for six generations. For ten years I ran the business organisation based out of Philadelphia only traveling to Asia most eight times a year, going to Europe a bit. I ended upwardly with some dispensable income, but the 17^th century artwork that I knew something about was either unavailable or manner as well expensive; they don't come up upwardly on the marketplace. I started collecting photography. There was an exhibition in 1986-87- the Whitney Biennial. I had been looking at photography for a while, really merely educating myself, having never taken whatsoever courses in the history of the field [of photography] at all. Only at that [Whitney Museum] exhibition I said, this is fantastic and I want to buy some of this. And then I started collecting photography.

What first drew you to contemporary photography at that Whitney Biennial?

[Photographer] Bruce Weber is the reason I got into photography. I was looking at an entire wall, floor-to-ceiling covered in Weber photographs. I was standing, looking at his pictures, & said, "I accept to buy some of these." Those were the very first pieces that I bought for my drove.

What moved you about Weber's work?

I love portraits. I love figurative work. Bruce takes pictures of people- of course, Bruce takes pictures of good-looking people, people you lot can just stare at all day.

Then you didn't start collecting to set out into the art world, y'all just collected out of pure interest for the photography.

Correct. I was in the article business organization, and the collecting was just something I was doing for myself. Then at a certain point it became much more than interesting to me than what I was doing for work. In '88 I was asked to curate an exhibition at a museum, and I wrote a catalogue, and I lectured near the exhibition equally well. In the class of putting together that exhibition- which was non drawn from my drove merely rather of contemporary work that I was interested in- it became more clear to me that I was more interested in photography than I was in the commodity business, and then I really left the business, moved to New York, and said, "I'm going to pursue something in the art globe."

You always pretty much had an interest in art, merely your involvement organically moved from 17^thursday century fine art to contemporary photography. That's so interesting.

Information technology's not a field that I e'er studied. I didn't cease my doctoral studies at Brown, and I've often idea that if I wanted to go back and really get my doctoral degree, I obviously wouldn't do information technology in the 17^thursday century anymore, I'thousand non involved in that at all. It would make sense that I would do information technology in photography. The crazy thing is that I can't really imagine going to any university and working with somebody there to finish a doctorate caste, because I teach at universities! I'm going to Parsons tomorrow, I've taught at SVA and ICP, and I've lectured in universities all over the world. Basically, I know more than than these guys at the doctoral programs, but information technology'due south all completely self-taught. Photography was a field that, when I got into it, near everybody in information technology had learned from experience. Photography is a medium that was started in 1839, but the field- as an academic field- is something that has simply developed very recently, literally in the final 50 years. You couldn't get a doctoral degree in the history of photography back in the 80s. Princeton I remember was starting something, but that was about it.

So you lot concluded up teaching and in the academic field related to photography anyway. How did this offset come up most?

People contacted me and asked me to lecture and teach. I started writing articles on photography. I've written six to eight books, and somewhere between 600 to 800 articles. So I was widely published, and people started to come up to me considering they knew that I knew something about the field.

What are some of the specific subjects you have written about?

I've written a number of books nigh one detail photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto- a Japanese contemporary artist. I had written an article almost his work, and I was at an opening reception at MOMA. I ran into the photography curator of the Met, who was also in that location. Nosotros were talking and she asked me what I was working on. I said that I had simply finished an article on Sugimoto, and she said, "Oh, take yous met him?" I said no, and he was continuing right there with her. Then he and I started talking, and he said that he would very much like to see this commodity. I sent it to him, and I didn't hear back from him literally for about a year or two. I though, oh god he didn't like the article at all. I got a call from the gallery that represents him, and they said, "We're doing an exhibition in Switzerland and we're publishing a catalogue, and we've been told by Mr. Sugimoto that we have to use your essay." For the next v years, whenever he had an exhibition on this particular body of work, they would contact me and inquire me to write on Mr. Sugimoto's piece of work. All of the books came out of that.

In your writing within the art world, what are some publications that you lot have been involved in?

I was a correspondent for a publication based out of London called The Art Paper, I was a columnist for a photography mag, a contributing editor at American Photograph magazine, I wrote for Art & Auction, Art & Antiques, Art News, the Photograph Review, the International Herald Tribune, Art Press International…

In terms of the academic work that you have washed, what are some institutions that yous have been involved in?

I was a professor at the Schoolhouse of Visual Arts for a while, and at present I'one thousand at ICP- the International Center for Photography. I regularly go over to Parsons, I've lectured at Trinity College, Penn, the Royal College of Fine art, the École Supérieure d'Arts Graphiques…

Who are your clients in the art dealing that you do?

We work with museums a lot. My artists are in the permanent collections of the Met, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, ICP, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Getty, the LA County Museum of Fine Arts, the Victoria and Albert, the Tate Modern. And then we work with museums all over the world, which once again a piffling scrap usual for someone working with cutting-edge contemporary artists, considering usually museums don't purchase work from young artists, they want to run into that the artist has established a career.

Do you lot work with collectors besides?

Nosotros work with private collectors every bit well. We piece of work with a fair number of either very famous collectors or celebrities.

What are some examples of famous collectors?

The most obvious or biggest name is Elton John. Elton is a major photography collector.

Do you work with galleries as well?

Nosotros also work with other galleries. We simply did an exhibition with a gallery in London, introducing work by a new Canadian artist that we take taken on. The show was very successful, sold well, got a great deal of press coverage. Now they want to do another show with us in 2015.

Regarding the artists that you represent, how do yous come to working with them?

We become near 40 submissions a twenty-four hour period. We are unusual, as about galleries volition non have unsolicited submissions- within the laws of supply and demand, in that location are way also many artists now compared to the number of galleries. People also become referred to me all the time, and I keep a working list of artists that I might want to do something with.

What are some names of artists that either yous take worked with in the past or are currently working with, in terms of representation?

The two artists that I've kind of been credited for discovering who have gone on to accept pretty adept careers are a young guy named Ryan McGinley- he'southward the first artist to ever have a solo bear witness at the Whitney and the youngest creative person e'er shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize- and another British creative person named Christopher Bucklow. Tyler Udall is the Canadian artist that we showed in London recently- he's never had a show before but that went very well. We accept a guy named Ron Diorio- probably our acknowledged artist. Martine Fougeron from France, published extensively in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and New York Magazine. We practise a lot of piece of work with magazines as well, with these artists.

Aye, the reason I've heard of Ryan McGinley is considering I've seen some of his fashion work in magazines. So, you work in New York, Philadelphia, and Colorado as well?

Colorado is a family unit residence; we have it set and then that my father and I both have offices up in that location. We don't do exhibitions there; it'southward only a place for me to become to that I tin can work from. In Philadelphia, we have an office where we do exhibitions, only information technology's private and past appointment only. So I'm based in New York.

You've worked in different capacities all over the globe, so how would you narrate the art market, specifically in photography, in different cities worldwide?

New York is the heart of the art world. It has been for the past virtually 75 years, both in terms of exhibitions and sales.

Practise you definitively call it the middle of the art globe, fifty-fifty globally? It's non only a myth then, in your opinion.

Totally. There are more galleries here than anywhere else in the globe. There are more than museums here, and at that place are just more transactions taking place.

So I'd imagine most of the collectors accept a big presence in New York also.

That's not true. Our clients are all over the world. You heard me talking about a sale nosotros did, to clients that have residences in New York, New Jersey, and a private museum in Germany. They were trying to decide where they want the art to be shipped.

But even though about collectors may not be based here, collectors do mainly look here, I'd imagine.

Ever. We merely had the Frieze Art Fair, while both [the New York fine art fairs] PULSE and Cipher were taking place. The art globe is changing; the art fairs are a major factor in the art globe at present, much more they were 20 years agone.

Why do yous recall the fine art fairs have grown and then much? Exercise you think their prominence is tied to how you said the sheer number of artists is growing, in the way that they peradventure kind of centralize or focus everything?

The collectors are people with disposable income, people with a great deal of wealth. The art market place is a luxury market place; it's not a necessity. After nine/11, the art marketplace came to a complete standstill, it was very clear that nobody needed to buy a picture. The collectors like to be entertained.

There'southward criticism, probably related to this modify, that the fine art world lately is maybe focusing too much on the commercial, business concern aspect and losing an emphasis on the creative side. Information technology'due south obviously always been a business, just practise you retrieve this shift is true?

It's true. There'south been a fundamental shift. You could maybe say that we're the victims of our own success, and our own excess. Now, there's been this fundamental shift. Now the emphasis is much more on the collectors. That [explains] the proliferation of the art fairs- information technology'southward well-nigh reaching out to and entertaining the collectors, catching their involvement.

So if at that place's been a shift, do you think that before, it was less focused on the collectors? Were they more on the sidelines, and information technology was more about the artists themselves?

Yeah, the business was on a smaller scale. Maybe in that location was more of a balance. I requite a lecture on the art market place, and bluntly it'southward meant to frighten the hell out of the students at art schools. But take New York as an example: nosotros have SVA, ICP, Hunter College, Parsons, Pratt, Marymount Manhattan, NYU, Columbia… and I know I'm forgetting schools here. But the signal is that every twelvemonth now, there are approximately 1500 photography students who come onto the marketplace- every year- and want to find a place in the art world. Even with the large number of galleries in New York that specialize in photography or have photography, the laws of supply and need are such at present that, dare I say, artists are almost a dime a dozen whereas the number of people who accept the disposable income to purchase is a relatively small number- we're talking about that "one percent." The "1 per centum"- well, the .1 percent of the "one percent"- those are our clients, those are the people who collect art! It's not the middle class- the people who collect are the rich. As a dealer, you put a lot more than effort in identifying those people and working with them. They're harder to notice and harder to convince than the artists.

Do you determine your artists' work's prices? How does that process work?

Yes, I determine them, and then the marketplace confirms them.

How do you ascertain the prices or gauge the art financially?

For young and emerging artists, we practise most of our business in the $three,000 to $10,000 range, and if you await at the art market overall, that'south a very low number. In fact, when people talk about the "art market place", there really isn't ane art market. You lot have the super galleries, similar Larry Gagosian, Pace, Werner- they're selling work in the $40,000 to $100,000 range. Their market is not my market place. Larry Gagosian wouldn't understand my business concern and I wouldn't exist able to office on his scale. In that location's another market that takes place in the $100,000 to $500,000 range. Again, that'due south non my market place. Most of our business organization is done in the $three,000 to $10,000 range, and nosotros're still dealing with big clients.

When you price a slice, how much of that decision is based on intuition and how much of information technology is based on numbers, the rest of the art market, and what you statistically know people will buy?

It is intuition. Y'all simply look at something and call back, and you also know the market and what other things are selling for.

How much control do collectors accept over the art earth equally a whole, equally opposed to say, museums or institutions?

Museums here in the United States role very differently than museums in Europe. Museums in Europe have generally been state-funded, although that's irresolute and museums in Europe are having to office more than like American museums. But American museums in the last 50 to 100 years have gotten very, very entrepreneurial. Our government funding for museums is infinitesimal compared to funding in Europe. What Americans spend on the arts in general, in the full broad spectrum of the arts, is a parentage of a penny per capita. So museums in the United states of america work very closely with collectors. I mentioned that I was on the photography commission of the Guggenheim Museum. There I am- a collector, educator, critic, writer, private dealer- at a committee for a museum. They're showing me work, asking what I think about acquiring this, and I'm showing them work, proverb, "You guys should look at this." At that place'due south no museum at present that doesn't have most x to fifteen unlike collectors committees, and they're all trying to get these major collectors onto their committees.

Would you lot say that the collectors are now the "end signal" in the fine art world?

They're much more of a driving force in the art world than they were 50 years agone. Information technology used to be that a collector collected some work, they would have it in their business firm- or houses- and at a sure point it was nigh the fine art going [from collectors] to unlike museums. And now a lot of collectors take their own private museums.

And it wasn't like that earlier?

No, and it's non as big of a factor hither in New York as information technology is elsewhere, because of real estate. Space is hard to discover.

Because there is such a focus on the collectors, would you lot say that it's harder for an artist to have an independent say of the direction of their piece of work? Or exercise the artists still decide what they make?

You have people like Gagosian, Werner, Arnie Glimcher, Step, but you lot also have people like Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons, who are very much factors in determining their own destinies. There was just a really interesting article on Jeff Koons being the almost successful American creative person since Andy Warhol while beingness the most underappreciated. I don't remember where I read it.

It was the cover story of New York Magazine. What practice you think of that?

Jeff Koons commencement of all thoroughly understands the art world and the fine art market place. He'south very savvy. Information technology'south worth noting what his background was, before he was an creative person. He was a commodity trader.

Like you.

Yes. In fact, at the very first exhibition that I curated at a museum, Jeff Koons came to the opening and the two of usa spent a lot of fourth dimension talking near commodity trading. Jeff understands the commodification of art. At the same time, he is very much in accuse of directing his work and destiny.

Well, Koons is one of the most commercially successful ones, and as you said his focus is agreement the art marketplace-

Damien Hirst is the same mode. But they're a rarity, merely near artists are non every bit commercially savvy, or they're not as interested in understanding the way the art earth functions as a concern, and they're not in a position to be able to direct how their career develops, to the extent that somebody similar Hirst or Koons are. They need the intermediary- a dealer or a gallery- to handle that aspect of their work. I've got a young artist, nosotros just started- he's a contempo grad of RISD. All he wants to practice is take pictures; he's really interested in taking pictures of animals. He started doing portraits of people and animals, and as his work has evolved the people have moved out of his pictures and it'southward actually nigh the animals. This is a guy who probably doesn't desire to be involved in the marketing of his work. He doesn't want to accept to meet with collectors or become to fine art fairs.

Don't yous think well-nigh, or a lot, of artists are similar that, especially maybe younger artists?

Certainly a lot of artists. They're more interested in making art than they are in making business, but they would like to be able to alive off of it, or to at least be able to continue to make their art. Very few artists are able to live merely off of their art.

Since you work with a lot of young artists and arts pedagogy institutions, what'due south your opinion on arts-focused higher education?

I think correct at present it's pretty close to fraudulent. Art schools take grown tremendously over the concluding 25 years. Dare I ask, how much are you going to exist paying to go to Parsons? Approximately $150,000 to $200,000 is going to get into your education and you living here in New York pursuing that education. What are yous planning on doing when you lot become out? Presumably y'all desire to be involved in the art earth to some extent. The bad news is that your reasonable expectation to be able to get a job in the art globe is non so skillful. At Parsons, for instance, they proceed holding someone like Ryan McGinley upwardly as this case- saying, you too could have a career like Ryan McGinley.

Yeah, that'south only one out of so many that graduate throughout the years.

Exactly. I tell the students that I represented Ryan for the first five years of his career. It was a moment where in that location was this perfect storm that is never going to happen again for a young artist. He came along at a time when there was a major collector who endowed a position at the Whitney for both a full-fourth dimension photography curator and a defended gallery to showroom photography, with the mandate that they prove [emerging] gimmicky piece of work- museums usually show more established contemporary art. The curator came to me saying they wanted to show his piece of work, and the exhibition happened I think nine months after the start coming together.

That never happens.

No, it doesn't. I only finished working with the Houston Museum on an exhibition. That exhibition was five years in the planning. The ability to respond to work and show it that quickly just doesn't happen that oftentimes, and information technology all came together for Ryan McGinley who did this show when he was 23-24 years old. Well, the schools- like SVA and Parsons- take expanded their programs exponentially, and notwithstanding their ability to evangelize jobs has probably gone down significantly, peculiarly since 2008.

I'd imagine though that, for example with photography students, most of the graduates from a photography program would probably go on to do commercial photography work as opposed to beingness represented past a gallery as an artist.

First of all, there isn't this partition in the art world to the extent that there used to be -which I think is a skilful affair. You mentioned for case that yous knew Ryan McGinley through his mode work. When I took Ryan up, he was very interested in establishing his credibility in the art world, just at the aforementioned fourth dimension I was e'er encouraging him to do commercial piece of work. Everybody is crossing over into everything now- which is okay, that'southward fine. The boundaries between commercial and fine art are much more blurred. Having said that, take the example of photographers. We've already established that the probability for a photographer to notice a identify in the art earth is really express. Well, the ability to go and do mode editorial piece of work is equally limited. At that place are fewer print publications, and more than and more news resources are using photography that they're getting from all over the place, including Facebook and Twitter. If you lot want to be a photographer for the New York Times, in that location are fewer and fewer of them that they are hiring. If in that location'southward an earthquake in Republic of haiti- whoever is down there has a camera, everybody has a camera with them these days, everybody in this restaurant has a camera correct this moment. It's all changed.

That could even translate straight into the art world. Anyone tin technically look at art on the Internet now; y'all don't specifically have to get to a gallery per se.

I've been proverb for a long fourth dimension that the traditional gallery function of doing exhibitions has got to evolve. The phrase I utilise is that a gallery exhibition is the most expensive way to reach the fewest number of people. Particularly if you are interested in working with young and emerging artists, y'all have to find new paradigms of getting the work out there. But I detect that information technology's artists who are thinking in very traditional forms the most. They say: I desire to exit, accept my pictures, I desire to impress them up, and do an exhibition. To me in a lot of ways that's nearly the nearly tedious way of getting work out at that place and marketing it.

So are you for pushing the fine art to be more enlightened of its commercial attribute? For instance, in an arts instruction, are you lot for an emphasis on marketing and commodification of any fine art grade is being taught?

No, I'm in favor of people understanding how the art world functions, understanding the art marketplace, agreement how the commercial world functions, and being much more flexible and fluid.

If and so much is changing so rapidly, what practice you call up the futurity value will be of a traditional art market system format, like a gallery, an art fair, etc.?

At some indicate somebody does want to run into the actual art. Whether information technology'south a museum or a collector. At a certain point information technology does come back to the actual fine art object. The Internet is fantastic, peculiarly for photography, for looking at piece of work. Merely at a sure point people do want to encounter the work and particularly every bit more and more artists piece of work on a larger scale, existence able to run into the physical thing and how it functions as an object is important. At that place's always going to exist a place for hanging a motion picture on a wall somewhere, but I'm not certain that we'll necessarily need 500 galleries full-bodied in a v-block area in Chelsea.

What is fine art'southward place in everyday life?

I call up years ago, reading about this guy who said, "I have a fantastic life. Everyday I go up and I await at fine art." I had left the commodity business organization and was starting out in the art world, and I wasn't making much money at information technology. I thought: I have this. You came to my identify; there are about 40 pictures hanging everywhere. Yous may not have recognized everything, only there were Ryan McGinleys, there was an Andy Warhol, there was a Barbara Kruger in the bathroom. There's fine art everywhere. I take art in my life everywhere I go.

And then you accept the Kruger and the McKinleys and the Warhol, but why? What moves you about them?

I like looking at pictures. I'k ever looking at pictures. When I'm on the subway, my favorite thing to do is pull out my iPhone and wait at pictures- I accept half dozen,000 photos on my iPhone.

What do you think is the value or the place of art in a more general sense, in the society that we live in?

One time I was talking to [lensman] Dwayne Michaels. He's done a lot of work with photographs that have text written on them. I asked him, why are you taking photographs, why aren't you writing, because the text is so key to the pregnant of the photographs. He said, "Considering photography is the medium of our times." Dwayne is someone who always crossed over between commercial work and art. He did a lot of album covers. People, and particularly with photography, are surrounded by fine art in ways they don't even realize. Ryan McGinley did a Wrangler and a Levi's entrada. He besides did an advertizing campaign for Dentine gum, which you would see in the subways. People were looking at Ryan McGinleys without even realizing that they were looking at Ryan McGinelys. Art is everywhere.

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