Written by Michael Klein, Owner & Director
Michael Klein is best known for his work and achievements in the field of contemporary art. As both a dealer and curator, he has had a long and distinguished career as a New York gallery owner and director, representing an international roster of emerging and mid-career artists. He became the first in-house curator for Microsoft Corp.
I fell in love, or rather developed an infatuation, with contemporary art in 1969 during a class trip to the Whitney Museum of American Art. Two works hit me the hardest: the installation of mirrored sculptures by Robert Morris and a fluorescent wall piece by Dan Flavin. A decade later, I had my own space in Soho, a large office at 611 Broadway, where I worked as an agent for some up-and-coming contemporary artists. Later, we moved to another space on Broadway and began an exhibition program that ran between 1983 and 1997.
I never planned on being a dealer. No one in my family had been in the arts, and my siblings all went into medicine. My parents were shocked when I explained I wanted to study art history. Through college and graduate school, that was my major and my passion. In fact, I worked in a bookstore to get my hands on art history books from their resale department. I then joined the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum, as a Helena Rubinstein Fellow, and worked at their downtown Manhattan branch museum while also giving tours on weekends. The fellows organized an exhibition, Frank O’Hara: A Poet Among Painters, which opened in February 1974 and was reviewed in The New York Times.
In graduate school, I excelled and, with the support of the program's director, I organized my first exhibition in 1976. The show, four artists, was a group show featuring four emerging artists: Alice Adams, Alice Aycock, Jackie Ferrara, and Mary Miss. Nearly 50 years later, all of them have had substantial careers and are represented in major museums around the world.
After graduate school, I was recruited as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I worked on several exhibitions there and also gave lectures. However, my big moment came when I reattributed a 19th-century painting in the center’s collection and discovered that it was one of two paintings by a Danish artist visiting the region. The second of the pair was in the White House collection. The director of the center, Martin Friedman, a great mentor of mine, was hugely impressed.
Determined to be back in New York, I was recommended to Max Protetch, who was preparing to open his new gallery on 57th Street. I was hired as director, where I was quickly introduced to the New York art world. It was there that I began my selling career.
After four years at the gallery, I went off on my own. (Image of invite.) Pat Steir hired me to be her agent. I sold her first painting for $8,500 and her last, before we parted ways, for $65,000. For her, I arranged sales, museum shows, and worked to promote her art and career. It became a model of the entrepreneurial approach that would define my work and practice. She gratefully introduced me to other artists, including Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Robin Winters, Mary Heilmann, and Jene Highstein. All of them eventually became part of my newly formed gallery. For each artist, I developed a thoughtful plan for growing and expanding their individual careers. It was a challenge to work with such independent visions as opposed to a school or single style of art. However, it meant each show was unique and exposed some aspect of the artist’s works.
As the gallery and business grew, I wanted more exposure and connections in Europe. I opened a small space in Amsterdam on the Brouwersgracht. The location allowed me to travel and meet clients in other parts of Europe, including France, Germany, and Switzerland.
The gallery roster grew as well, including James Casebere, Matt Mullican, Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, Alan Charlton, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Elaine Reichek, Beverly Semmes, and Jackie Ferrara.
With more artists to manage and promote, I was motivated to find a larger exhibition space. I found a ground-floor gallery on Wooster Street. The new space afforded us the opportunity for many group shows, and we added works to the gallery inventory: Tony Cragg, Fischli/Weiss, Thomas Ruff, Jan Vercruysse, Bernard Frize, Damien Hirst, Haim Steinbach, Christopher Wool, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Longo.
The ground floor had a large garage door, so in good weather, access to the space was open to the street, and visitors could wander in off the street. One day, JFK Jr. came in on his bicycle while riding home. The space proved to be a great staging ground for large installations, video, architecture, and sculpture. Matthew McCaslin, Rita McBride, and Jackie Ferrara all used the space to create remarkable works, drawing in many visitors and, of course, critical attention as well.
By the mid-90s, after more than two decades of art galleries being the predominant businesses in Soho, the neighborhood was transforming into more of a retail destination. Many dealers who had pioneered spaces in Soho were moving to Chelsea. I did not want to move and decided that the gallery would not survive this change. The audience was shifting focus to Chelsea, not Soho. Our last shows were held in the fall of 1996. It was not an easy decision, but I was ready for new challenges. After 25 years in the business, I needed a break to catch my breath and think about my future. Thanks to the work I had done, each artist found a new dealer ready to take them on. All of them had followers and markets to sustain their careers.
Two years later, I embarked on a new career path in a new city. This was the next chapter of my creative life at Microsoft Corp, where I became the company’s first in-house curator. There, I helped transform and build the collection and developed an education program for employees and the local community. It was quite a remarkable experience, bringing me new challenges and teaching me new skills, which I still use today.
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Michael Klein, Owner & Director
Michael Klein's expertise lies in his role as a private art dealer and freelance, independent curator for individuals, institutions, and arts organizations. Today, Michael Klein Arts works with a diverse group of artists, estates, galleries, and non-profit institutions, providing management, curatorial, and other consulting services. At the same time, the company serves institutional as well as private collectors, focusing on developing collections of emerging, mid-career, and established artists. The company also organizes traveling exhibitions both in the United States and abroad.
