Summer 2021 Issue
Larry Gagosian reflects on the incredible life and career of his friend Doris Ammann.
Doris Ammann and Georg Frei, New York, 2007
Doris Ammann and Georg Frei, New York, 2007
Doris could light up a room, brighten every conversation, illuminate an artist’s intentions, and spark a collector’s passion. She had the high-wattage European sophistication that can intimidate in any language, but also a disarming warmth and wit that could put anyone at ease. She was both an impeccable perfectionist and a modest and forgiving friend. The ever-present twinkle in her eye was as irresistible as her quick and generous smile. The art world will be much dimmer without her.
She became one of the most talented art dealers in the world, but it was not a role she chose for herself. In 1977 she cofounded Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, the Zurich gallery that bore the name of her charismatic brother, and where she happily played the supporting role. When Thomas tragically died, in 1993, she came from behind the scenes to center stage with fortitude and grace. Thrust into a world of extraordinarily competitive dealers, she became a beloved and respected friend among them. She had the attention of the top collectors in the world and gained their confidence by being a consummate professional and a true class act. Her discretion was legendary. She was strong but never forceful. You can gain power by force, but it’s stronger if you gain it through admiration. She commanded respect from artists, curators, and collectors alike through her sheer straightforward excellence. The art world’s love affair with Doris was earnest, deserved, and reciprocated.
Doris Ammann and Georg Frei, Rome, 2007
Georg Frei and Doris Ammann, New York, 2012
Georg Frei and Doris Ammann, Basel, 2006
Alba Clemente and Doris Ammann, New York, 2004
Doris found a collaborator and a soulmate in the art historian Georg Frei. They spent over three decades working together in one of the most enviable partnerships in the art business—the two were inseparable, cutting expertly tailored figures around the globe and finding themselves inevitably on every guest list. The thing about Doris and Georg was not only that they were sophisticated and erudite and really knew their stuff, but that they knew art was a grand adventure and seemed to have a lot of fun. Their affection for art, artists, and each other was infectious.
We were friends and co-conspirators for forty years. Every encounter or conversation with Doris could be the bright spot of the day or the thing that kept you up at night—she made it all look so easy and her elegance seemed effortless, but it was born of real guts. What becomes a legend most? Warholian red lipstick is the perfect war paint. The art world is not for the faint-hearted, but Doris proved one can excel with decency and the rare quality of unshakable integrity. Her friendships were pure and lasting and true. She wouldn’t sell her real treasures for the world. For nearly my whole life in this business, she was a model and inspiration and sometime jousting partner. Her friendship was a gift that will long outlast the loss. Her unexpected death leaves a hole at the very center of the art world that we haven’t begun to get our heads around yet. She was so loved and she will be greatly missed.
Artwork © Jean Pigozzi
Francis Bacon lived and worked in Paris for a decade starting in the mid-1970s. The city and the art he encountered there provided a profound backdrop for his austere late style, which often brings together smooth, colorful backgrounds, spare architectural signifiers, and sculptural human forms. Here, three striking paintings from that period are considered by Sebastian Smee.
Janne Sirén considers Anselm Kiefer’s new paintings, the subject of an exhibition at Gagosian, New York, entitled Seal My Ears Shut and I Shall Hear You Still.
Adam D. Weinberg has been working with Giuseppe Penone on an exhibition of the artist’s new sculptures, The Reflection of Bronze, that opens at Gagosian, New York, on April 22. The works explore the character and possibilities of bronze. Here, Weinberg considers Penone’s enduring engagement with the alloy and addresses the conceptual underpinnings of the exhibition’s three-room structure.
From their respective fields, three international cultural figures—artist and designer Ronan Bouroullec, fashion visionary Michèle Lamy, and chef and restaurateur Enrique Olvera—reflect on Donald Judd’s work in furniture, the subject of recent exhibitions in South Korea and Japan.
Laura Bruni writes about a major exhibition celebrating the work of the British sculptor Henry Moore at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.
On the occasion of Baselitz: AVANTI! at the Museo Novecento in Florence, Italy, Holly EJ Black considers the roots and reverberations of Georg Baselitz’s printmaking.
Mark Franko considers how Emily Coates resurrects the spirit of George Balanchine’s American beginnings through archival research, spoken dialogue, and movement in her performance Tell Me Where It Comes From.
On the occasion of the exhibition Francesca Woodman: Lately I Find a Sliver of Mirror Is Simply to Slice an Eyelid at Gagosian, Rome, Alyce Mahon explores the artist’s engagements and affinities with Surrealism, from the writings of André Breton to the photographs of Hans Bellmer. Mahon focuses on the time Woodman spent in Rome while she was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Sharad Chari reflects on a recent visit to Ellen Gallagher’s studio in Rotterdam, Netherlands, thinking through the artist’s intertextual interrogation of the oceanic and the ways in which her practice is informed by a wider Black intellectual and artistic world, an abiding interest in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and the imperatives that surround this studio by the Port of Rotterdam.
Christian House reports on Paris’s American Library, a storied collection of English-language books in the French capital, tracking its evolution and enduring role in a cosmopolitan literary milieu from World War I to the present day.
Salomé Gómez-Upegui honors Beatrice Wood, the “Mama of Dada,” an underappreciated trailblazer within the movement who went on to become a brilliant ceramist.
D.A.P. and Designers & Books have published the first authorized facsimile of the highly influential and heterodox magazine Archigram, produced by the architectural collective of the same name between 1961 and 1974. This new edition faithfully duplicates the original nine and a half issues, complete with pop-ups, electric resistors, gatefolds, and all, and accompanies them with a collection of essays by key figures from the world of architecture. Here, Dan Fox considers the legacy of this innovative, irreverent, and prophetic magazine.