Perrotin pulls out of Dubai gallery and ends secondary market collaboration in Paris

Emmanuel Perrotin, the founder of the eponymous global gallery brand, has ended his collaboration with the art dealers Tom-David Bastok and Dylan Lessel “by mutual agreement”, according to a statement sent by each of the parties on 13 February 2024.

In 2021, the trio had teamed up to open a five-storey space at 8 Avenue Matignon, in Paris’s 8th arrondissement, focusing on the secondary market. Perrotin has sold his shares of the Paris space to his two former business partners, who will now operate the gallery under the name Bastok Lessel.

Bastok and Lessel have also bought their former partner’s shares in Perrotin Dubai, another secondary market gallery, which opened in the Dubai International Financial Centre in November 2022. It will now operate as Bastok Lessel Dubai.

“We are proud of the exhibitions we have organised over the last two years in Paris and Dubai, and we are delighted to bring these magnificent addresses under our banner,” Bastok and Lessel say in a statement. The primary and secondary markets will be on the agenda, with a forthcoming exhibition in Paris devoted to Keith Haring, Warhol and Basquiat.

This separation and sale of shares comes after Colony Investment Management took a 60% stake in Perrotin gallery in 2023.

“The gallery will continue its secondary market activity. This announcement does not change any of our plans for the gallery’s development and expansion,” says a spokesperson for Perrotin gallery. “We wish to concentrate on all our upcoming projects, such as the inauguration of Perrotin Los Angeles at the end of the month and all our artists at the Venice Biennale, among others.”