{"id":31226,"date":"2025-07-02T00:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T00:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31226\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T00:38:10","slug":"tim-blum-to-sunset-gallery-seek-new-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31226\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Blum to ‘Sunset’ Gallery, Seek New Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter over 30 years in the art business, Tim Blum<\/a>, who helped grow the careers of artists ranging from Yoshitomo Nara to Takashi Murakami<\/a>, is stepping away from his gallery, which will no longer operate with a traditional gallery model, the dealer told ARTnews Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlum said that the decision was driven neither by financial strain nor a midlife reinvention, but by burnout. \u201cThis is not about the market,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is about the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was referring to the whole architecture of contemporary gallery life: the ever-expanding web of fairs, openings, obligations, and expectations that he said have grown more demanding year after year. <\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not working. And it hasn\u2019t been working,\u201d he said. \u201cEven when it looked like it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe decision to sunset the gallery comes just about two years after another major shift: the end of Blum\u2019s longtime partnership with Jeff Poe. The two cofounded Blum & Poe in Los Angeles in 1994, when the city\u2019s art scene was still peripheral to New York\u2019s dominance.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the next three decades, they helped transform it into a global force, representing artists like Yoshitomo Nara, Solange Pessoa, Takashi Murakami, and Henry Taylor, while expanding to New York and Tokyo. Poe stepped away in August 2023<\/a>, citing a desire for a \u201csimpler and more fluid path.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s been an extraordinary journey,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cBut I see this moment as yet another inflection point.\u201d By October, Blum had removed his former partner\u2019s name from the masthead.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlum\u2019s Tokyo and Los Angeles locations will close following their summer exhibitions. A New York space expected to open in Tribeca in the fall may not open at all\u2014if it does it won\u2019t be as a traditional gallery\u2014 and Blum will not maintain a formal artist roster going forward.<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, Blum said, he\u2019s pursuing \u201ca more flexible model,\u201d one that will involve special projects, collaborations, and what he described as \u201clonger-term visions still in development.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the gallery will sunset, Blum won\u2019t disappear from the market. \u201cOf course I\u2019ll still be buying and selling art,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s part of my DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis shift has been building for years, Blum said, though he pointed to the period after the 2008 crash as the inflection point. \u201cSince 2009, everything\u2019s moved upward and outward,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve been very involved in that expansion.\u201d More fairs, more locations, more shows, more artists\u2014growth as a kind of default setting. But even in the most robust years\u2014like 2021, when the market was frothier\u2014it didn\u2019t feel sustainable. \u201cThe business just got more and more arduous, more aggravating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd yet the response across the industry was always the same: keep going. \u201cIt\u2019s like a friend of mine used to say, you\u2019re banging on the lawnmower to fix the hot water heater,\u201d Blum said. In his estimation, the system was misaligned, and everyone knew it\u2014but they kept doing the same thing, hoping for a different result. Even now, years after the pandemic briefly forced a pause, many dealers are back on the same circuit, moving faster than ever. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEverybody talks about wanting to step off,\u201d Blum said. \u201cBut nothing ever really changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter decades spent navigating what he calls \u201cthe world of big money and big business,\u201d he\u2019s looking for something else with a slower rhythm, a different purpose. \u201cI don\u2019t want finance and logistics to be the foregrounded notion in my headspace every day.\u201d What he\u2019s after instead is a life in the market that allows for reflection, relationships, and other modes of engagement with art that aren\u2019t purely transactional.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne emerging focus is a long-simmering project that he and his wife have been quietly developing for years\u2014something Blum describes as a space for \u201cslower engagement.\u201d The emphasis is on healing, intentionality, and consciousness. He sees this as a way to reconnect art to context, meaning, and self-examination. \u201cIt\u2019s about building a bridge between different modalities,\u201d he said. \u201cReal-life transitions with art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe market has recently grown sluggish, but Blum was adamant that the idea of winding down operations had been percolating for years. \u201cThis isn\u2019t because Basel sucked,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it did suck. It was like a thunderclap\u2014confirmation of everything I\u2019ve been feeling for years.\u201d He said he sold 85 percent of his booth in advance, but the fair seemed to confirm his need to do things differently. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a single meaningful conversation Thursday through Sunday,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was profound.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBlum was specific about the fact that he will not become an adviser or start a consultancy firm, but he said it was time for a change. \u201cEveryone talks about wanting to step off the merry-go-round,\u201d he said. \u201cBut nobody ever does. I\u2019ve decided I need to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After over 30 years in the art business, Tim Blum, who helped grow the careers of artists ranging…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1657,648,1032,1033,171,26427,26428,67,132,68,26429],"class_list":{"0":"post-31226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-basel","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-takashi-murakami","14":"tag-tim-blum","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-yoshimoto-nara"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114780851618095096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}