Lévy Gorvy Dayan (LGD) will close its Hong Kong outpost after five years of operations, the Financial Times reported on July 4. Citing Rebecca Wei, the blue-chip gallery’s head of Asian operations, the report said that the lease on LGD’s Central location will not be renewed at the end of the year.
“Client behavior has changed,” Wei told the FT. “When I started, people wanted to see the specialists and works in person. Since the pandemic, they have got used to long-distance purchasing and now want you to go to them.”
Wei, the former Asia chairman of Christie’s, joined LGD as a partner in 2020. At the time, Covid restrictions were still in effect, and the gallery had scaled back its European operation, seemingly re-channeling its energies to meet the needs of the Asian art market. Per the FT, Wei will remain based in Hong Kong and will work closely with the gallery, however the details of her position have not been finalized.
“We are being realistic about how I should spend my time—which is face to face with clients,” Wei said.
In a statement to ARTnews, Cofounder Dominique Lévy was optimistic about the gallery’s future in Asia: “We are not closing our presence in Hong Kong; we are closing our current space and adjusting to the shifts in needs of our artists and clients. We will continue our dynamic partnership with Rebecca Wei and reaffirm our commitment to artists including Tu Hongtao, but in an agile and nimble manner that better responds to our artist and client needs.”
The Hong Kong branch of LGD, which also has spaces in New York and London, included private viewing rooms, a library, a research center, offices, and public exhibition space.
The gallery’s Hong Kong programming included “Portraits Go Pop!,” a group show about the connection between contemporary portraiture and Pop art that closed this past March 8, and a presentation of seven new paintings by Derrick Adams in 2022.
LGD was founded in 2021 under the joint leadership of Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, Amalia Dayan, and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, the latter of whom exited the operation in 2023.
