Should we stop reading gallery closures solely as signs of market collapse and start seeing them for what they also are—a long-overdue generational shift, making space for new voices and fresh models? The kind that might be better equipped to engage new audiences and carry the art world into its next chapter? I’d argue yes. After all, as the world changes and we find ourselves at the next pivotal historical juncture, every industry must evolve, including the art market.
As a next-gen professional who’s already worn several hats in this industry, I’ve been thinking about this for a while but finally decided to write about it after seeing a quietly provocative post from the anonymous account The Art Daddy, that read “daddy Legacies are dying at an alarming rate this week,” set, perfectly and painfully, to Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were. The post mourned the recent closures announced by legendary art daddies Tim Blum and Adam Lindemann—raising the white flag and stepping away from the art world (or battlefield), for good and, presumably, for peace.
As a Millennial entering the art world at a time when, at least in Europe, university programs in art market studies and cultural management were still a novelty, I’ve spent more than a decade navigating an industry obsessed with what’s next—especially during the disorienting rupture of the pandemic. And yet I keep asking: what actually comes next and when will it get here?
Succession and legacy are complicated
Coming from a system like Italy’s, where most of the business remains in the grip of a few very old men—and even fewer women—the hope, after my own stint as a gallerist, was that a generational shift might finally arrive. Most of these veterans will eventually exit, save for the rare few with succession plans and international infrastructure. The rest will quietly bow out, leaving space for a new set of rules, provided a new generation of dealers and professionals is ready to write them.
Even among the most established names, few have achieved what Massimo De Carlo has: building a decentralized global framework with multiple locations—Milan, London, Hong Kong, Paris—each staffed by solid teams and increasingly independent from his direct oversight. In 2023, De Carlo also announced plans to launch a private foundation in Italy, aimed at supporting exhibitions and artist residencies, moving beyond the commercial gallery model while preserving his legacy.
Similarly, there are rumors that another veteran of the Italian art scene, Lia Rumma—who played a pivotal role in championing experimental practices in the 1960s, particularly Arte Povera—may open a museum to house her extensive collection and commemorate her legacy. This would follow her major donation of seventy-three artworks to the Museo di Capodimonte.
The pattern—and the question—repeats in the U.S. and elsewhere, where veteran dealers are showing signs of strain under a system that’s grown faster and stretched wider than they ever envisioned or can realistically sustain.
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The exceptions, as always, are the better-structured mega and mid-tier galleries that built not just international footprints but real leadership teams, capable of steering the ship when a founder burns out or steps away. Barbara Gladstone, for example, had already planned for succession, appointing four partners to continue leading the gallery before her passing last summer. Meanwhile, as part of that pre-determined succession plan, part of her collection began hitting the auction block at Sotheby’s New York Evening Sale in May, bringing in $18.5 million, while works from the collection of her colleague gallerist Daniella Luxembourg fetched $33.6 million that same night.
For other blue-chip names, the safest bet has been keeping it in the family and structuring multigenerational galleries, as seen with Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner and Pace. As for Gagosian, his succession plan remains the subject of ongoing speculation. In 2022, he established a formal board of directors, including seven senior gallery associates and twelve high-profile outsiders—among them Snap’s Evan Spiegel, artist Jenny Saville, financier J. Tomilson Hill, Glenn Fuhrman and LVMH’s Delphine Arnault—to help shape the gallery’s future. In 2024, Andrew Fabricant, the gallery’s COO and key stabilizing force, departed unexpectedly, just before the appointment of Brooke Lampley, former Sotheby’s vice-chair, as Senior Director—an addition that further suggests a shift toward succession infrastructure. Still, Gagosian isn’t retiring—at least not yet—framing these moves as necessary steps in building “a more durable company” that can function without him.
The art world’s old guard is exhausted
For galleries still anchored to a single founder, the weight of scale has often become untenable after years of playing a game that only gets harder with time—especially when an owner goes through a midlife spiritual or vanity crisis. As Tim Blum from BLUM (already operating solo under just his last name after Jeff Poe’s departure last year) did just last week, announcing he was “sunsetting” his gallery after 30 years in operation—a poetic way of framing burnout and a spiritual search for greater purpose. As much as we can empathize with his emotional and psychological distress after years of from-scratch art empire development now crashing under its weight (and bills), it was arguably a full abdication of responsibility, leaving his staff and entire artist roster adrift, with no notice and no clear communication.
Just a week later, another major collector-turned-dealer, Adam Lindemann of Venus Over Manhattan, announced he was closing his gallery after 14 years of business in a strikingly honest, and undeniably inflammatory, farewell published on Artnet. While Blum made it clear he’s not entirely leaving the game (“It’s part of my DNA,” he said of buying and selling), Lindemann declared he was done, full stop: “There will be no pivot to consulting nor private dealing,” he wrote. “I’m going back to air kisses, handshakes, fist bumps, side hugs, head nods, winks, waves, big smiles, thumbs ups and good vibes.” Opening a gallery, he admitted, at least at the beginning, left him stranded in no man’s land—dealers no longer trusted him and collectors no longer embraced him. I know that feeling all too well, especially when the game gets tougher, and suddenly no one wants to be friends with the competition.
“This is not about the market. This is about the system,” Blum has echoed in multiple interviews, pointing to the unsustainable scale and pace the art world has reached in just a few decades. “Even in strong years, it didn’t feel sustainable,” he admitted to ArtNews, citing the burnout that comes from an overheated system of nonstop fairs, openings and the total erosion of work-life boundaries—all while sales have begun to slow. “My soul came screaming through my body one night… I can’t fucking live like this anymore,” he told Cultured in a rare moment of raw candor. “Everybody talks about wanting to step off—but nothing ever really changes. I’ve decided I need to.”
The fact that running a gallery is not only one of the most arduous but also one of the least rewarding—financially, emotionally or even in terms of artists’ and collectors’ gratitude—is no news. According to Artlogic’s 2024 Gallery Report, which surveyed 333 gallery professionals and dealers worldwide, 61 percent of North American respondents reported poor work-life balance. Their European counterparts fared only slightly better at 57 percent, though they do at least manage to take more holidays, with 62 percent reporting between 16 and 30 days off per year, compared to 0 to 15 for most of their American colleagues. Lack of work-life balance, however, is just the tip of the iceberg—one of many daily hustles a gallery owner must navigate to stay afloat in a high-pressure environment.
This is clearly the kind of life no one dreams of sustaining forever—least of all the rich kids or deep-pocketed business owners who open a gallery vanity project thinking it’s cool or hoping for a late-career pivot. But the same holds true for the “art daddies” who actually did the work, built careers, secured institutional relevance and showed up to every global fair. At some point, it has to end. Why is it so unthinkable that even gallerists might simply give up, just like any savvy business owner does when their company is no longer profitable and the return no longer justifies the effort? Why is it so hard to accept that even gallerists can retire? Unless, of course, you’re an ageless industry machine like Larry Gagosian.
The new generation of dealers has little to lose
Still, there’s something else that keeps people in the game: most dealers didn’t open a gallery for the money—they did it first for passion and ambition. And that flame, at least, often still burns among younger dealers, many of whom are experimenting with more collaborative models just to survive—and maybe even thrive—amid increasingly cutthroat competition with the megas.
While the multimillion-dollar top tier is shrinking, every report—from Art Basel and UBS to Artprice—points to continued dynamism at the lower price tiers, where a new wave of younger collectors is eager to enter the game. But they’re not knocking on blue-chip doors first. Legacy galleries can be intimidating, yes—but more than that, they often fail to deliver what these collectors are actually looking for: meaning. Not just inventory, but real connection, real community, cultural engagement and a sense that buying art can translate to education, cultural value and support.
These younger collectors want to enter the game—but not at the cost of taking on the stress of yet another job. Often, their interest lies in supporting artists and narratives that resonate with their own lives, while also finding community among peers. In a time when meaningful human connection is increasingly rare, especially in fast-paced urban environments, the art world can offer a space for cultural alignment, emotional engagement and a much-needed sense of belonging.
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In the meantime, we’ve witnessed the rapid rise of young dealers across geographies—eager to claim their space in the game and savvy enough to connect with a new generation of collectors through more unconventional models. Many have earned the respect of the old guard through strong, thoughtful programming—often doing the groundwork to identify and grow emerging talents that bigger galleries later scoop up. That’s usually when legacy collectors start paying attention, hoping to get in earlier next time.
According to the latest Art Basel and UBS report, dealers with annual turnover under $250K saw a 17 percent increase in sales in 2024, following an 11 percent rise in 2023. Meanwhile, galleries generating over $10 million reported a 9 percent decline—proof that dynamism now lives further down among the more accessible price points and players.
More recently, at least some major galleries have started playing a slightly fairer game, announcing co-representation deals with artists they once would have simply poached from their longtime galleries. For instance, superstar abstractionist Jadé Fadojutimi is still represented by one of her original galleries, Gisela Capitain, alongside Gagosian, while Andra Ursuța is jointly represented by Ramiken and David Zwirner—just two examples among many.
At the same time, smaller and younger galleries are also the ones most affected by the cutthroat fair system: forced to apply and attempt participation, even when the odds are stacked against them. To be accepted, they are often steered toward the more “curated” sections, which require riskier and more ambitious presentations—solo booths, installations or conceptual shows that demand higher production costs and higher risk. These formats may generate visibility, but they rarely generate sales, making it difficult—if not impossible—to recoup the financial investment. And in some cases, the cost of participation alone can be enough to sink a young gallery entirely.
What Lindemann wrote about the fair committees—that they “gleefully ask you to get down on your hands and knees, wag your tail, and beg for forgiveness. Then, callously, they waitlist you in permanentia”—is not just a theatrical flourish. It’s a painfully accurate depiction of how the system treats most dealers, especially those who are new and simply trying to enter the game.
While it’s clear that the giant, global art system—and particularly the way fairs operate—is overdue for structural change, a few initiatives are finally beginning to emerge. On the official side, there’s Art Basel Qatar’s recently announced artist-led format, a complete departure from the traditional model. And then there are more off-road, radical alternatives like Zero Art Fair, Future Art Fair or the U-Haul Art Fair, all of which challenge the standard fair system at its core.
Still, in an industry evolving faster than ever—shaped by broader geopolitical, economic and societal shifts—perhaps these closures shouldn’t be read solely as signs of crisis, but also as signals of opportunity. Legendary dealers, many of whom have already secured both financial success and critical recognition, are stepping off the battlefield. And in doing so, they leave space for a new generation of younger dealers and professionals—those with nothing to lose, and everything to prove.
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