A report printed in Air Mail options allegations of inappropriate sexual habits, questionable accounting, and extra at Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
The weekly publication’s report, printed on Friday, attracts on “greater than a dozen interviews” with former staff of the celebrated design agency cofounded by Julien Lombrail and Loïc Le Gaillard 18 years in the past.
ARTnews’s makes an attempt to succeed in Lombrail and Le Gaillard by telephone weren’t profitable. When ARTnews reached out to the gallery’s world advertising director Mary Agnew for an official remark, she wrote in an e-mail, “We’re after all deeply troubled by the content material of the article. Proper now, we’re prioritising the welfare of our employees and artists and taking the time to contemplate our response with our inner groups.”
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ARTnews despatched additional inquiries to Agnew by e-mail regarding the allegations about Carpenters Workshop Gallery, however didn’t obtain a response by press time.
Carpenters Workshop Gallery works with high-profile artists and estates, together with Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé, the Dutch Atelier Van Lieshout, the Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, and the American sculptor Wendell Fortress, in addition to trend designers corresponding to Rick Owens, Karl Lagerfeld, and Virgil Abloh.
The gallery reportedly has 120 staff throughout its 4 places, in Paris, London, New York and London. Ladbroke Corridor—a 43,000-square-foot, $37.5 million glitzy membership and gallery house—was unveiled final April within the London neighborhood of North Kensington.
In 2022, the Artwork Newspaper referred to as the enterprise the primary design “mega-gallery”; the gallery was the topic of a New York Occasions profile printed final month. It has attracted high-profile collectors corresponding to actor Brad Pitt, designer Tom Ford, singer John Legend, mannequin and tv persona Chrissy Teigen, Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, and artwork collector Dasha Zhukova.
Carpenters Workshop Gallery has additionally exhibited at a number of festivals, together with Design Miami, Design Basel, the Armory Present, and TEFAF.
Employees interviewed by Air Mail claimed that artists acquired lower than the usual 50 p.c fee for promoting works on consignment, and alleged that the gallery did not reimburse bills for the manufacturing and cargo of works. The report additionally featured claims the gallery had manipulated gross sales invoices despatched to artists.
One part of the Air Mail report targeted particularly on the gallery’s 83,000-square-foot manufacturing facility situated within the suburban French city of Mitry-Mory, 15 miles from the middle of Paris. The power, Roissy, was profiled by Self-importance Honest in 2023. Allegedly poor circumstances could have contributed to the dying of one of many staff, Zbigniew Sokol, a Polish bricklayer who reportedly collapsed whereas working at Roissy and was later discovered unconscious in 2015.
The Air Mail report additionally featured allegations of sexual misconduct by Le Gaillard. Employees interviewed by the publication claimed that he was concerned with a gallery director, that he chosen feminine interns based mostly on bodily appearances, and that he led affairs with employees members, together with “an intern in her early 20s,” per the report.