Lévy Gorvy gallery, which has spaces in New York and London, is bolstering its presence in Asia with the opening of an office in Shanghai’s business district. Its co-owners, Dominique Lévy and Brett Gorvy, have appointed Danqing Li, who previously worked with Gorvy at Christie’s, as their senior director in Asia.
“Our primary goal is to offer advisory services and secondary market sales,” Li says. The office, situated on Nanjing Road West, which is also home to the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, includes a viewing room for collectors. At this stage, there are no plans to open a traditional gallery there.
Lévy and Gorvy have long-established reputations for collecting and dealing in Asian Modern and contemporary art. Gorvy was a key figure in developing Christie’s in Asia, including in 2013 launching the first sale in mainland China by an international auction house.
The dealers inaugurated their partnership this year with a joint show of two celebrated post-war painters: Willem de Kooning and Zao Wou-Ki. The exhibition is due to travel to China in 2019 as part of plans for the gallery to collaborate with private museums on selling exhibitions throughout Asia.
Lévy Gorvy has also organised exhibitions on the Japanese Gutai artist Kazuo Shiraga and the Korean minimalist Chung Sang-Hwa, among many others.
During her ten years at Christie’s, Li contributed to the company’s growth in China, leading its first +86 First Open auction in Shanghai in 2015, which promoted works by emerging Chinese contemporary artists.
Gorvy sees the Shanghai office as a springboard to the wider region. “Shanghai offers easy access to major cities across Asia, where the market has grown rapidly in recent years,” he says. “To this day, Shanghai is an epicentre of connoisseurship, with a strong collector and artist base. Our team there will be best positioned to further develop our relationships within the region.”
