JACOB KING
Art Advisor
The art-world power player has placed challenging work in some of New York’s most famous buildings, proving that “lobby art” can be anything but boring and an art advisor can be much more than a tastemaker.
WHAT’S ONE BOOK, WORK OF ART, OR FILM THAT GOT YOU THROUGH AN IMPORTANT MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE? I don’t know if this qualifies as a single work, but the Hans Holbein retrospective at the Morgan Library in 2022 was very important for me. The world was just emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, and I was in the midst of a difficult professional transition. I was floored by the immediacy of these paintings that were created in a time and place that was far more violent and uncertain than our own. (Holbein died from the plague, and many of his subjects were beheaded by Henry VIII.) The works’ endurance over 500 years is astounding, and somehow, comforting. The background on my iPhone is still set to a detail shot I took of Holbein’s An Allegory of Passion, with a horse and rider galloping above a tagline from Petrarch: “And so desire carries me along.”
“"Global warming."”
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE OF IN YOUR INDUSTRY? LESS OF? More long-term thinking. People are so caught up in the moment—hustling to make a sale, or secure a show, or predict what an artwork might be worth in a year. They rarely prioritize the long-term cultivation of collectors and artists. Growing the art market will require nurturing lasting relationships and building trust. Anyone who wants to understand contemporary art—let alone try to foresee what new art might be relevant in the future—needs historical perspective.
WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT? Global warming.
WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU WERE STARSTRUCK? [Seeing] Bruce Weber at the Amber Waves farmstand in Amagansett.
in your life?
