"Sperone Westwater, the Bowery-based gallery that represents canonical figures including Francesco Clemente and Bruce Nauman, will cease operations at the end of this year. The closure, first reported by Artnet News, comes just two months after the gallery marked its 50th anniversary and three months after the gallery's co-founder, Gian Enzo Sperone, sued his fellow co-founder, Angela Westwater, seeking to dissolve the gallery, and alleging her "unlawful handling" of funds."
"Rent payments appear to be at the centre of the disagreement. The suit alleges that the gallery's two stockholders paid $10m towards the Foster building with the understanding that the gallery would pay $1.8m in rent. Westwater requested a change in payment structure, stating, "the Gallery's program and revenues were in decline such that it cannot afford to pay the agreed rent and, from the limited information shared with Petitioners, is unprofitable and, unfortunately, no longer a leading gallery of contemporary art"."
Sperone Westwater gallery will close on 31 December with co-founders Angela Westwater and Gian Enzo Sperone pursuing separate endeavors. The gallery was founded in 1975 in Soho and became a bastion of Neo-Expressionist painting in the 1980s. The gallery moved to the Lower East Side in 2010 into an eight-storey Norman Foster–designed building valued at $20 million. A lawsuit filed on 18 August by Gian Enzo Sperone and Sandstown Trade Ltd. centers on alleged financial mismanagement and disputes over rent payments and payment structure. Shareholders claim $10 million was spent toward the building with an expected $1.8 million rent obligation; Westwater says declining revenues made that rent unaffordable.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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