ArtByNumbers: Moving Sale

“Everything must change in order to remain the same,” says Antonio Homem, the adopted son of Ileana Sonnabend, about the Sonnabend Gallery’s move to Chelsea last month. “I liked SoHo” – where they had been since 1971 – “and the only way to stay in SoHo was to come to Chelsea.” Homem was the chief designer of the 12,000-square-foot West 22nd Street space, purchased for $1.9 million and divided into seven showing spaces for $600,000. For their first show, they mark nearly 40 years of business (Sonnabend, the former Mrs. Leo Castelli, first opened a gallery in Paris in 1962) by highlighting the work of artists they’ve represented, including Warhol, Rauschenberg, Nauman, the “Neo-Geos” of the eighties, and their newest, Rona Pondick (pictured). Traffic has increased to the old levels of SoHo, and recent customers include art-book publisher Benedikt Taschen, who bought a Jeff Koons painting for $250,000, and a “newbie” who purchased a John Baldesarri photo work for $90,000. Sonnabend and Homem say they intend to continue in this spot for the next 40 years – or until the SoHo art world moves yet again.

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ArtByNumbers: Moving Sale