Dealer Nino Mier may close four of his gallery’s eight locations after an Art Newspaper report revealed an alleged pattern of underpayments to artists.
Artnet News reporter Annie Armstrong first published news of the LA galleries’ impending closure Friday afternoon. The four venues that will shutter, according to Artnet, are all located in Los Angeles, the city where the gallery first opened in 2015.
“As Nino Mier Gallery increasingly focuses on its operations in New York and Brussels, we are strongly considering closing some of our gallery space in Los Angeles and will share more in the near future,” a gallery spokesperson said in a statement to ARTnews.
The Art Newspaper report, which appeared at the end of April, was based on financial documents dating from 2018 and 2019. The report by Julia Halperin noted that Mier’s gallery appeared to have underpaid its artists by anywhere between 20 percent and 50 percent on certain transactions.
Louise Bonnet, a Gagosian-represented artist who formerly showed with Nino Mier Gallery, was among those who accused Mier of underpayment. She said she felt “lied to, manipulated and robbed” by the enterprise.
A gallery spokesperson told the Art Newspaper at the time that it would investigate the claims in the report.
Since its founding nine years ago, Nino Mier Gallery has quickly grown, opening branches in Brussels and New York. Its sites in other cities appear to still be in operation.