Category: Gallerist
Nationality: American
Last Year: 70
The former Russian-trained ballet dancer kept her balance in 2009, with the gallerist’s bigger artists spread across institutions: Michael Landy at Tate Liverpool, Rebecca Warren at the Serpentine, Wolfgang Tillmans in a spotlight room at the Venice Biennale. Maybe such security justifies her gallery programme, which this year skewed particularly unpredictable, from Lars Laumann’s lengthy, uneasy film about a death-row prisoner to scrambled painterly abstractions by LA-based newcomer David Ratcliff. But this year also marks 20 years since Paley set up in Bethnal Green, the first dealer to do so; when she takes risks, they tend to pay off.