Category: Curator
Nationality: French
Last Year: 10

The supercollector continues to slide south – no. 1 in 2007, no. 6 in 2009 and no. 10 last year – despite his growing art collection (in excess of 2,500 works) and complete lock on Venice, where his two art museums, the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana, have turned a biennial art destination into an all-year, every-year hotspot. What’s more, sales at Christie’s, his own private auction house, surpassed prerecession levels. So why the demotion? This has been a preparatory year for the billionaire. In September, the Christie’s-owned Haunch of Venison gallery, which lost half its roster of big-name artists when its founders fled last year, reopened in its original London location and a shiny new space in New York. Though the new directors are focusing on younger artists and response from the artworld (which kicked the gallery out of the fair circuit because of its auction-house affiliations) has been kinder, the overall relationship remains lukewarm.