Pace Gallery CEO Marc Glimcher Pushes Back on Loss Reports, Promises New European Space

Pace Gallery's UK company posted a $67.7 million turnover for 2024 — a 35.5 percent drop from 2023's $105 million — but CEO Marc Glimcher says the gallery is already profitable again and will open a new location in Europe "fairly soon."

"We're all off the bottom, we just had a record art fair at Art Basel Paris, and we've had sellout shows of primarily young artists—everything is turning," Glimcher told ARTnews in a phone interview on Monday.

What do the filings actually say?

Pace published its 2024 accounts with Companies House, the British government's business register, last week. The filing was 10 months late. It recorded a pre-tax loss of $2,429 for 2024, against a $6.8 million profit in 2023. The UK-registered entity, The Pace Gallery Limited, serves as the umbrella company for Pace's operations in Europe and Asia, excluding Tokyo and the US.

Days later, the gallery's 2025 accounts appeared, showing turnover down another 2.6 percent to $65.9 million. Glimcher explained the numbers as an accounting maneuver rather than an operating problem.

"We did a balance sheet shift, which appears to be a loss because we're changing around the way we invest money and take money from other units and let the money flow through each unit independently," he said. "We're in a process of keeping those units a little more autonomous and self-sufficient, to do that, you have to shift the balance sheet."

What's happening to the gallery's real estate?

Pace has been reshuffling its property portfolio on both sides of the Atlantic:

• In June, the gallery put its London building on the market, saying it wanted a "less corporate" space in the British capital.
• In September, Pace announced it was seeking tenants for part of its Chelsea headquarters in New York.
• The current London gallery occupies 8,600 square feet on Hanover Square, and Glimcher said the replacement will be "about the same size, and we're going to a more prime location that fits the model we've been working on."

He hinted he already has "a couple of amazing choices" for the next London property. He ruled out exiting the city entirely: "London is working very well. We are never going to close in London."

Glimcher framed London as a command center for the wider operation. "A lot of work gets done managing Asian and European units," he said. "It's a great place to have headquarters and it carries a lot of weight the way New York does."

Why did 50 artists leave the roster?

In June, Pace laid off 50 staffers and dropped 50 artists from its roster, including Keith Coventry, TeamLab, John Gerrard, and Glenn Kaino. The gallery now represents 85 artists in total.

Glimcher said the departures involved artists Pace wasn't actively working with. "There were areas that we were really not engaged with, it wasn't benefiting them or us," he said. "It's just about focusing your efforts to do less better than doing more not as well."

What does this change for the gallery's outlook?

Glimcher pointed to early results from the restructuring. The gallery's Berlin and Japan operations, he said, have been "very instructive" to the overall business strategy, which has involved "a lot of internal reengineering of the way the companies work together."

"We have had an extremely profitable year already in Los Angeles," he said. "The things we've done are already bearing fruit, and they're bearing fruit because the market has substantially changed."

The next test comes with the London announcement. As Glimcher put it: "What we're doing in London, when we have the space and announce it, it's going to make a lot of sense to everybody."