Pace Gallery Is Launching PaceX, a New Initiative to Promote Art and Tech Projects

Though the opening of Pace Gallery’s new $100
million, eight-story New York headquarters is still weeks away, the
gallery is already dominating headlines. Today, the mega-gallery
announced the launch PaceX, a new initiative to support projects at
the intersection of art and technology.

The gallery has hired an all-star team to lead the
venture. Christy MacLear, who led an advisory service for
artists’ estates and foundations at Sotheby’s Art Agency, Partners
until her somewhat abrupt
departure last year, has been tapped as CEO of the program.
(Prior to Sotheby’s, she served for six years at the Robert
Rauschenberg Foundation, where she was the organization’s first
CEO.)

Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, a director at the gallery, has been
promoted to chief creative officer of the initiative, while
Kathleen Forde will join as PaceX’s inaugural curator of
experiential art. Forde, a well-regarded curator in the sector,
previously served as artistic director at large for the media arts
space Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul.

In an interview with ARTnews, which
first reported the story, Pace’s president and CEO Marc Glimcher
noted a lack of infrastructure at the gallery level for tech-minded
artists. “In what way is the gallery model equipped to support
these artists in the way it supports painters and sculptors?”
Glimcher asked.

Pace has been edging into the tech sector perhaps more than any
other mega-gallery.

“It appeals to the start-up risk-taker in me,”
MacLear told ARTnews of the new gig. “I’m excited
about this role because it is where artists are pioneering the
future.” Asked what kind of projects PaceX will take on, MacLear
said, “Bold ones. Projects which match the issues like climate
change or social justice that drive artists to new tools and
canvases, such as cities or immersive spaces.”

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