How Harper Levine Became the Go-To Dealer of Long Island’s Art Scene – RisePEI

Most New York gallerists who’ve opened areas within the Hamptons obtained their begin within the metropolis and constructed up a community of artists and collectors earlier than venturing out east. Vendor Harper Levine did the reverse. He began his gallery in East Hampton in 1997, tapping a wealthy group that may launch him from a uncommon bookseller to a longtime gallerist. Now, he has 5 areas beneath his auspices, with three of them situated in Manhattan.

This previous weekend, Levine celebrated a serious milestone, opening “25 Years,” a present in East Hampton that toasted the gallery’s twenty fifth anniversary.

Vendor Jack Hanley and artist Cindy Sherman had been amongst those that got here this previous Saturday to see the present, which incorporates work by Mark Grotjahn, Richard Prince, and Eddie Martinez. Artists Rashid Johnson and Joel Mesler, who each have close by studios and now have work within the present, had been additionally available, mingling amongst artist Mary Heilmann and collectors Stafford and Laura Broumand.

“I need to have a good time the truth that I survived this for 25 years,” Levine mentioned in an interview final week within the gallery area he opened in New York’s Chelsea artwork district in 2020. The anniversary present, he mentioned, is “a celebration of my life and enterprise and is a approach for me to form of commingle artists. [It’s] about believing in my very own story and seeing what we’ve been capable of do.”

In 2001, Levine, who was born and raised in Manhattan, was dwelling in Minnesota when he determined to return again to New York and make a brand new begin. As he places it, “I had 100 bucks.” However his journey again dwelling ended up coinciding with the terrorist assaults of 9/11, and, with a brand new child in tow, he and his spouse determined to as a substitute settle within the Hamptons, the place Levine opened a uncommon guide retailer that ultimately additionally grew to become a gallery.

His objective in opening an artwork area of his personal was to affix an extended art-historical lineage within the Hamptons. “The Hamptons has such a wealthy inventive historical past, with Jackson Pollock and the opposite Summary Expressionists, and over time there have been some very critical galleries on the market,” he mentioned. “[Bookseller] Glenn Horowitz all the time used to explain [the area] as a butterfly internet… a captive viewers.”

Levine’s experience ultimately attracted figures like Richard Prince, who went to Levine seeking books. Progressively, Levine’s community of supporters within the artwork world expanded, slowly changing him from a guide supplier to a gallerist who had a particular potential to hyperlink artists from throughout with Lengthy Island’s monied collectors and artwork lovers. 

“Working with Harper is such a dream,” mentioned the Quebec-based painter Joani Tremblay in the course of the reception of “25 Years,” the place her abstractions are on view. “He’s an important gallerist, has all of the connections, and is a sincerely good particular person.”

For Tremblay, and the opposite artists who work with Harper, like Jennifer Guidi, Joel Mesler, and Frederic Tuten, accessing the Hamptons is an unbelievable alternative.

“There should not many locations the place you may have a robust summer time present,” Tremblay mentioned, referring to the lull that hits town as soon as the hotter climate strikes in. “Perhaps you will get a gaggle present or one thing small, however working with Harper primarily offers us an additional season.”

Having an area and community on the East Finish grew to become doubly advantageous when the pandemic flushed the wealthy from Manhattan to their second (or third, or fourth) houses on the East Finish. There, Levine was able to obtain them, not like different gallerists who scrambled to seek out area for pop-ups.

Nevertheless it wasn’t all the time clear it was going to end up this manner.

“When the pandemic began,” Levine mentioned, “everybody advised me, ‘Fireplace your crew.’” As a substitute, anticipating that collectors would come to their Hamptons houses to journey it out, he saved his crew, and took on extra area in his East Hampton gallery’s constructing.

In a fair bolder transfer, Levine then expanded to new areas in New York and Los Angeles, marking Harper’s as a veritable empire.

Whereas Levine’s East Hampton gallery will all the time be his dwelling, today, he’s equally targeted on his New York galleries. In March, he opened a second, bigger area on twenty second Avenue. An artist buddy of his was fond of claiming that due to all of the galleries opening in East Hampton, Newtown Lane, the city’s foremost thoroughfare, had develop into the equal of twenty second Avenue: Ross + Kramer, the Gap, Eric Firestone, a brand new Sotheby’s outpost, and different areas dot the lane.

However Lengthy Island’s artwork scene won’t ever rise to the extent of Manhattan’s, and Levine appeared to counsel that this isn’t a foul factor. Looking his latest Chelsea area’s large home windows, the supplier noticed, “twenty second Avenue is twenty second Avenue.”