Lucas Zwirner
Lucas Zwirner is Chief Commercial Officer at David Zwirner Gallery, where he oversees books, podcasts, and digital platforms that drive global art commerce and engagement.
BOMB Magazine | The Task of the Publisher: Lucas Zwirner Interviewed. AG Let’s talk about the ekphrasis series. Your undergraduate background is partly rooted in nineteenth-century German Idealism and Romanticism, as well as ideas related to the canon, having studied closely with Harold Bloom at Yale. For ekphrasis, you’ve chosen to revive texts by Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Proust, John Ruskin, and Oscar Wilde, among others. These are canonical aesthetic thinkers, in some cases interested in systems of aesthetic morality. With contemporary art criticism being so indebted to postmodern critical theory, do you find some solace in these Romantic projects from the nineteenth century? LZ In college I started out studying the philosophy of language, which I quickly found out was heavily math-driven. AG So your philosophical background aligns pretty directly with the direction of the series? LZ Yeah, with ekphrasis I’m interested in promoting writers that present something additive, as opposed to criticism or deconstruction.
Art Is Democratizing, Lucas Zwirner Explains How: Listen Here. Hosted by Highsnobiety’s Editor-at-Large Christopher Morency, “On the Record” is a podcast series of intimate, off the cuff conversations with icons and cultural engineers that have shaped the worlds of fashion, music, tech, art, business, sports and youth culture at large. For this episode, Morency spoke with Lucas Zwirner, head of content at David Zwirner gallery. The art world is evolving, fast. What has long been considered one of the world’s most elitist societies – composed of high brow art dealers, collectors, and artists – has slowly opened up. The digitization of art has not only changed the means in which art is experienced and sold, but it has also evolved its aesthetic.
Most of all, it’s democratized the playing field for a younger generation, one with its own curatorial tastes and behaviors. The below interview is a written version of ‘On the Record’ Season 2, Episode 6. Your Highsnobiety privacy settings have blocked this Instagram post. Correct. Right. It’s a great point. The Mirror in the Mirror | hockebooks – E-Book Verlag. “The Mirror in the Mirror” – now in the E-Book also with illustrations by his father Edgar Ende, to whom Michael Ende dedicated this book. It is a fantastic story labyrinth of a very special kind. For the author himself, this work was of great importance: in interviews, he liked to call it his “never-ending story for adult readers.” The reader is taken into a mysterious narrative world, full of bizarre situations and mysterious fates, surreal images and philosophical thoughts. Those who open themselves in amazement to these enigmatic visions and allow themselves to be drawn into the fantastic stories will emerge from Michael Ende’s magic labyrinth with a new perspective.
The core question is: What is reflected in a mirror that is reflected in a mirror? If two readers read the same book, they are still not reading the same thing. Tell Me Something Good | Books | David Zwirner. Edited by Jarrett Earnest and Lucas Zwirner. Introduction and portraits by Phong Bui Since 2000, The Brooklyn Rail has been a platform for artists, academics, critics, poets, and writers in New York and abroad. The monthly journal’s continued appeal is due in large part to its diverse contributors, many of whom bring contrasting and often unexpected opinions to conversations about art and aesthetics.
No other publication devotes as much space to the artist’s voice, allowing ideas to unfold and idiosyncrasies to emerge through open discussion. Since its inception, cofounder and artistic director Phong Bui and the Rail’s contributors have interviewed over four hundred artists for The Brooklyn Rail. Selected and coedited by Jarrett Earnest, a frequent Rail contributor, with Lucas Zwirner, the book includes an introduction to the project by Phong Bui as well as many of the hand-drawn portraits he has made of those he has interviewed over the years.
David Zwirner Becomes the Lead Funder of the Drift. In an unusual move, David Zwirner, a mega-gallery that’s best known for representing artists like Yayoi Kusama, Jordan Wolfson, and Kerry James Marshall, will help bankroll the literary magazine the Drift, which has gained a loyal following in New York. The gallery said on Wednesday that it would become the Drift’s lead funder. Through the arrangement, the Drift will be able to grow its budget, and David Zwirner will host the publication’s gala starting next year. Founded in 2020 by Kiara Barrow and Rebecca Panovka, the Drift publishes a print edition three times a year.
It was conceived as a throwback to a kind of publication that no longer exists: one that was willing to publish leftist journalism that is unabashedly intellectual, much of it in the form of long-form criticism. Almost all of the writing, Barrow and Panovka wrote in the first issue, is by “young people who haven’t yet been absorbed into the media hivemind.”
Connection. Lucas Zwirner. Lucaszwirner Publisher Publications. Lucas Zwirner (@LucasZwirner) on Flipboard. Lucas Zwirner - Chief Commercial Officer in New York, NY, USA :: Behance. Jesse Lee, the LA entrepreneur selling good taste to young collectors | CNN. The worlds of art, luxury and design have long fixated on the elusive “young collector” — Gen-Z and millennial buyers whose shopping habits and status signifiers will drive spending for decades to come. The matter of where to reach them — online — is self-evident. Beyond that, however, lie existential questions for ailing auction houses, mega-galleries and the other traditional gatekeepers of collecting.
What do under-40s want on their walls and mantelpieces? What are their status symbols? In other words, what now constitutes good taste? For Korean American entrepreneur Jesse Lee, self-described “geriatric millennial” and founder of the online design marketplace Basic.Space, the answer is simple enough: uniqueness. “Good taste is about finding something nobody else has, whether it’s a vintage car, some furniture pieces or up-and-coming artists from New York or Korea that no one has heard of,” he said over the phone, citing the meteoric rise of vintage fashion as further evidence. Meet Lucas Zwirner, the Heir Reimagining David Zwirner Gallery One Book at a Time. In 2015, Lucas Zwirner, a Yale-educated literature aficionado who had envisioned a career in philosophy, was successfully lured into the family business with his father’s promise to grow their art gallery’s eponymous publishing house, David Zwirner Books.
“I realized that rather than writing alone, I would rather be working on a project with a group of people,” explains Zwirner, 27, who, along with his team, now works with artists on various editorial ventures. “I’m trying to focus on projects that extend the gallery’s reach beyond monographs.” At the moment, Zwirner oversees 25 book releases a year as editorial director. “[I want] to look at the intersection of writing and visual art and make something interesting happen,” Zwirner says. But his foray into art is no surprise, as it has been ingrained in his life for as long as he can remember.
LUCAS ZWIRNER with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve - The Brooklyn Rail. Rail: It sounds like it was very influential in your conceptualization of the ekphrasis book series. Let’s turn to that. Zwirner: Yes, I would never have been able to do this particular series without my particular academic background. It’s about finding things that have been overlooked and bringing them back into focus. The idea was to put together a philosophically oriented series that touches on visual art and is packaged in such a way that it is attractive and interesting.
[He picks up Pissing Figures 1280 – 2014 by Jean-Claude Lebensztejn.] Rail: Ah, Chardin and Rembrandt by Marcel Proust. Zwirner: Yes, that’s a very early essay which Proust wrote when he was twenty-four. Rail: I mean you really are a scholar. Zwirner: He’s at Stanford now, but he was at Yale when I was there, though we only got to know each other after I graduated. Rail: And then Paul Gaugin . . . Zwirner: Ramblings of a Wannabe Painter. Rail: What is the controversy? Rail: Oh my. Rail: Exactly. Zwirner: Yes. Elise By Olsen: In Conversation with Lucas Zwirner. Lead ImageLucas ZwirnerPhotography by Jason Schmidt, Courtesy of David Zwirner Gallery This week, 19-year-old Norwegian editor and publisher Elise By Olsen (Recens Paper, Wallet) is the guest editor of AnOthermag.com, presenting a series of articles exploring the current and future state of fashion and art publishing.
Alongside conversations with publishers, critics and image-makers, this guest edit offers an intimate insight into her own publications and working practice. Lucas Zwirner was born into the art world. He grew up with his father David Zwirner – the art dealer and owner of David Zwirner gallery – helping to grow the gallery into the international blue chip gallery that it is today. Lucas first became interested in publishing after studying philosophy and literature, where he focused primarily on questions of meaning and narrative. I’m very intrigued by his work approach so sat down with him for an discussion about the state of contemporary publishing. LZ: Over 30 a year. Lucas Zwirner - New York City, NY. Lucas Zwirner is a New York–based art business executive and the Chief Commercial Officer of David Zwirner Gallery, a leading international contemporary art gallery.
He plays a key role in gallery brand development, cultural media, and commercial innovation. Zwirner leads David Zwirner Books, the gallery’s award-winning art publishing imprint known for the Ekphrasis series, artist interviews, and critical essays. He also created and hosted Dialoges: The David Zwirner Podcast, a top arts podcast known for thoughtful episodes, featuring artists, writers, and cultural leaders. With a background in literary translation and a degree in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from Yale, Zwirner brings a scholarly lens to his creative work. He co-founded Platform, a curated online art marketplace, where he continues to expand access to emerging artists and online art acquisition. Lucaszwirner Publisher Publications.