Founder & Director of the Michael Klein Gallery;Having gone out on my own and working from on my own from my apartment on the Upper Westside i felt it was time to make the big move. Headed to Soho of course and at the time the place to find relatively large but reasonably priced spaces was the Cable Building in the corner of Houston and Broadway;Signed the lease and then thought ok now what…sold two works immediately a great sculpture by Paul Thek, Warrior’s Arm , and a wonderful work on paper by Robin Winters. The Winters was purchase by Agnes Gund ,a trustee of MOMA and was delivered to her home The Thek had to go to Des Moines, Iowa so I flew with it there and delivered it myself. Check in hand I came back to NYC and that is how it all started.
My neighbors in the building were the Cable Gallery. They had a program of new talent and from them I bought a Christopher Wool painting and Haim Steinbach sculpture both of which I still wish I had…
At the start of my career I called myself an artist agent because I wasn’t yet ready to do monthly exhibitions nor did I have a space. Nevertheless word got out about what I was doing and the New York Times and Sculpture Magazine ended up doing profiles o n me to discuss this “ new” approach in the field. My job as I saw it was to coordinate gallery shows, museum shows, sales, commissions and of course press. These are the days before social media.;My list of artists grew because the Cable office was open to visitors and would would send out cards announcing not shows but installations of new works. I’ve already mentioned Robin Winters I also worked with Pat Steir; Ulay/ Marina Abramovic; Matt Mullican ,Jene Highstein …..and before too long small exhibitions of projects such as Mullican’s Dallas Project a multi panel work that we travelled to museums in the US and Canada after its premier at the Dallas Museum of Art . Winters Vermillion Years a collection of small desk like tables that were filled;with his drawings and topped by a glass vase blown by Winters and a show of remarkable new wood carvings by Highstein To this list add a beautiful show of James Nares paintings and shelf pieces and fantastic antique furniture works by the collaborative team of Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler;I found artists but many found me because of their relationship or friendship with artists I was already representing. Also once we began to do exhibitions I wanted to add others to the roster and presented solo exhibitions by Alan Charlton and Ian Hamilton Finlay and had acquired work by the French painter Bernard Frize and the German photographer Thomas Ruff with a similar intention. I opened the door for others from Europe Switzerland and Austria: Helmut Federle, and Gerwald Rockenshaub all were featured in the gallery either exhibitions or in our back room. On the walls of the back room one might also find Cindy Sherman or Robert Longo or new acquisitions to my collection of Emil Lukas or Carey Leibowitz .;Reviews, openings and dinners followed. Sometimes large crowds at my home at 2 Fifth Ave or a local Vietnamese restaurant for smaller groups. The walk from Soho to my apt was always wonderful after a successful opening night.;The 80s were complex: rich, expansive, overly confident and then friends began to die… in the AIDS epidemic that engulfed the country many more of my friends and colleagues died : Paul Thek, William Garbe and Ken Goodman to name but three …artists all of whom I greatly admired and had worked with in some capacity now gone. William Olander, a curator at the New Museum; David Seidner a fashion photographer, critics, dancers, architects all of whom contributed to the life and character of Soho.;The corridor along Broadway began to be filled with more galleries; Soho was booming. Rents rose and so we moved to 594 Broadway across the street from the New Museum that had also moved to Broadway. At then same time I opened a second office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In order to bring visitors to our new Soho address we did a TRAINS exhibition , three works by Chris Burden, Jon Kessler, and Dennis Oppenheim. It did the trick. We got a great write up in The New Yorker, and NewYorkers came in by the dozen. Museums came, collectors and even celebrities like Mick Jagger, JFK Jr and Rudolph von Ribbentrop, son of Hitler’s foreign minister and his charming wife who invited me to visit them and see their collection in Wiesbaden, Germany;Anxious for a ground floor space and so it came to pass Without fanfare the gallery on Wooster Street opposite the Drawing Center and around the corner from Fawbush. Otto my wonderful English Setter and I walked from 2 Fifth every day to the gallery and back under the watchful gaze of the World Trade Center . The ground floor space had a garage door which in the spring and summer was open to the street so that one could just stroll in . Life and work in Soho felt great. We did everything locally ,shopping, eating, banking and contemporary art seemed to be flourishing.;On Wooster St. I wanted the experience of our visitors to be unique each time they came, never knowing what might be the new show even if they recognized the artist by name. I championed many women artists : Elaine Reichek, Rita McBride, Dona Nelson, Jackie Ferrara, Beverly Semmes. We presented a variety of works : a great video installation by Matthew McCaslin ; works on paper, watercolors and drawings by Malcolm Morley; James Casebere’s large scale photographs and group shows including Fischli/Weiss; Michael Ashkin; Tony Cragg, Siah Armajani and Richard Tuttle and painters Sarah McEneaney and Mary Heilmann;By the mid 90s galleries were already looking at their options in Chelsea, larger spaces and real estate prospects. I had neither the cash nor the interest never liking the neighborhood so not like character or conviviality of the life of Soho. I wanted stay put and initiated poetry jams and some lectures but the audience was drifting north.;Closing was not easy but inevitable .We ended with two New York Times reviews back to back which made everyone around totally jealous. Within two years life changed: I was alas heading to the west coast having been hired to be the first in house curator for the Microsoft collection. A great way to begin the 21st century.