Interview: Art world legend Simon de Pury announces his latest venture

Swiss art dealer and internationally-renowned auctioneer and art world legend, Simon de Pury, has announced his latest venture, a new exhibition series titled de PURY presents... collaborating with international artists to stage exhibitions from within their own studios. The first exhibition de PURY presents Microcosm by Henry Hudson launched on the 1st of June, with the London-based artist, Henry Hudson. Hudson presents a new series of portraits, begun in 2019, of leading art world figures including Ai Weiwei, Ed Ruscha, Rashid Johnson, Sean Scully and others.

Hudson (b. 1982) has long had a diverse practice, working across painting, sculpture, ceramics, installation and print-making. These new works represent how his practice extends into the digital realm using the iPad, scanners and UV printers to inform his contemporary portraiture. For the series, Hudson takes a photo and draws a portrait of his sitters on an iPad, which is then printed via a UV Flatbed printer on a selected medium tailored to the individual’s background. With Sean Scully’s portrait the artist has printed it on slate making reference to Scully’s Irish heritage, similarly Ai Weiwei’s portrait is printed on dried petals hinting at the artist’s famous Sunflower Seeds installation at the Tate Modern in 2010. 

Simon de Pury tells us more about this exciting project below:

With this project, you’re working directly with artists; how do you think the relationship between artists, galleries and collectors have evolved over the last few years? Where do you see it heading? 

Before the pandemic commercially successful artists were under a lot of pressure to produce enough works for their various galleries that needed to fill their booths in an ever increasing number of art fairs. If you work with artists today it is important to look at their career in a strategic way and to help them navigate the market taking a long term view. Dealers and gallerists will have to represent their artists more like agents do in the film or music industry.

How do you think the pandemic has changed the way collectors acquire works? What are some pros and cons?

The art market was way behind any other market in terms of its use of technology. These last 15 months it has caught up big time. Most collectors are perfectly content today to acquire works that they may not have been able to inspect in person before. Detailed condition reports give them the necessary confort and a wider number of people can communicate with the art specialists. The pros are that the art works themselves don’t need to travel extensively thereby being far less at risk. I don’t really see any cons.

 

You’ve always been at the forefront of the art world and have always embraced the digital; what is your take on NFT’s?

Most collectors as adults try fulfilling as adults the dreams they had as children or teenagers. Last night I had dinner with a major collector of ‘physical’ art. To my great surprise she told me that she had started acquiring NFT’s under the guidance of her 11 year old son. His ambition is to go to other planets when he is a grownup and he wants to be able to take his artworks along. We are in a phase where many bridges will be built between the physical and the digital world to the mutual advantage of both.

Tell us more about the upcoming exhibition and how this project came about - is this also the first of many more to come? 

It happened like most of the best things purely by chance. I was in Dallas at the same time as Henry Hudson. When he took a snapshot of me and a couple of hours later sent me a fully executed portrait done on an UBER ride to the airport. I was so impressed by the result that it sparked off the idea for the current exhibition. My favorite occupation is to visit artists studios. I'm excited that people will discover Henry Hudson’s portraits by seeing them on the walls of his studio, regardless wether it happens digitally or physically.

 

Your first exhibition will be with London based artist Henry Hudson - Tell us a little bit more about this collaboration and why you chose to work with Henry. How and why were the selected artists/art-world figures, Ai Weiwei, Kenny Schachter, Rashid Johnson and Sean Scully, chosen?

When you look at any field whether it is the  world of cinema, music, fashion, architecture or design you realize that they are microcosms that don’t overlap much with the other worlds. To show off the strand of portraiture in Henry Hudson’s artistic practice it made sense to do portraits of artists, curators, dealers and collectors that make up the fabric of the art world. The majority of the portraits in the current exhibition were done based on ultra short sittings that took place in London, New York and Los Angeles. Some are friends of the artist, some are friends of mine and some are mutual friends

What are your thoughts on the future of art fairs and where they sit in a vastly uncertain, pandemic and post-pandemic world? 

Some of the main art fairs will when they resume be again be a place where participating galleries will be able to access a wide audience. Their activities however will imperatively need to be federated in new digital initiatives such as the one recently announced by David Zwirner or similar ones rumored to be launched shortly.

 

What change would you like to see within the art market and why? 

The fear of crossing the threshold of an art gallery or an auction house is still widespread. Digital access and a greater transparency will vastly widen the net of participants in the art market. This is beginning to happen when you see that the number of people following live the big evening auctions of the main companies since the start of Covid is now easily surpassing one million viewers.

It has been a tumultuous year for the entire world and Art industry - What is your biggest takeaway from the experience?

It has been a wake up call for the planet as a whole and for each of us individually. It has allowed us to reassess our priorities and to act accordingly. Human nature is such however that as soon as things are better we revert to a behavior of before as if nothing had ever happened.

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