ART GALLERIST, PHILIPPE HOERLE GUGGENHEIM
Popular culture has long revered The IT Girl. That particular intriguing, smart and beautiful gamine. The cool chick with style and substance and class and pedigree. Well, in this politically correct day and age, Simply put – the IT Boy is the masculine ideal that all men want to be, and the guy that all the women want to be with. we now seek to celebrate The IT Boy. Or in this case, this particular New York City man-about-town and the talk of Manhattan as we speak by the name of Philippe Hoerle-Guggenheim. The tall, French/German born New York Art Gallery owner, not only wears a black Dries Van Noten suit to perfection (his signature) — he leads one of the most talked about art gallery's in the capital of the world right now with his sixteen month old Hoerle-Guggenheim Gallery in the heart of the Chelsea High Line right there at the nexus where 23rd Street meets 11th Avenue. With that ancestry famous art world last name – Guggenheim and that angular
Franco-Teutonic frame the New York City holloi polloi is in full swoon over this dude. 'The Guggenheim family is originally a Swiss family,'' he tells me. There were four of them and two of the brothers went to America and made their fortune in the mining business and two other brothers went to France. My mother's tree and hence mine, extends from the French Guggenheims.'' Oooohlalaa. darling. But seriously you folk – pity you weren't there one opening night for their contemporary pop artist Massimo Agostinelli. That was the night the actress Elizabeth Hurley showed up in this rather vulgar cleavage baring lace dress and the minute Philippe Hoerle-Guggenheim arrived forty five minutes late to his own event — she dropped every conversation she was having and kittened over like a cat in heat to dash for her hug and air kiss. That opening night at 527 West 23rd Street was the night when he also had a vintage fire engine red Aston Martin on a red carpet outside
the gallery. And after getting to know Philippe rather well — he does indeed have a serious fetish for vintage Aston Martin motor cars. ''Aston Martin is a 102 year old classic British heritage business, And in all that time they've manufactured only 75,000 cars.'' In other words this is the world's finest example of an exemplary production line honed to absolute perfection. ''My favorite one is the Aston Martin DB6. I developed a love for that car at a very early age. As a kid I was a huge fan of James Bond movies, and for me the Aston Martin DB6 is the most beautiful car there is. It is a work of art. The HG Contemporary is getting buzz for its staple of hot talked about talent such as Retna — the hottest artist in the world right now, and who in fact created the album cover for Justin Bieber's latest hit album. Then of course the aforementioned Massimo Agostinelli whose anagram infused celebrity pop images completely sold out that night. ''Art must challenge the senses,'' Philippe Hoerle-Guggenheim explains. And by so doing his imprimatur seems to be to gather a stable of artists whose work have one thread in common – wordplay. Whether its through the anagrams of Massimo Agostinelli or the use of the very own calligraphy language that signify the work of Retna or the fabulous work of the artist Jan Larsen whose appropriation of iconic advertising tag lines and imagery is indeed masterful. Add to that yet another legendary PHG Contemporary opening featuring the amazing photographs of the 80's iconoclast Lee Jaffe of the very young Jean Michel Basquiat and neverbefore-seen images of the late, great, Bob Marley. The Cancer born bachelor with the sweetest brownstone loft in the way chic West Village of Greenwich Village travels the world constantly whether that is to Dubai in March of 2016 where he staged a Pop Up satellite of his gallery in collaboration with the sparkling brand new Four Seasons Hotel in Dubai. He is always packing the Goyard and Halliburton luggage to head to Art Basel in Hong Kong or Miami or London for the noted Frieze Art Fair. ''The social commodity is vital to my strategy. My ideal was to always have an event driven gallery to also host charity events and cocktail receptions. All while enjoying beautiful art. I have enjoyed the process very much.'' This 2017 his buzzy art gallery is getting ready to debut the first solo show of the noted San Francisco conceptual artist Laura Kimpton and his brand new exclusive talent the Swedish born Alexander Klingspor who this astute arbiter has already declared ''the Toulouse Lautrec of the 21st Century''. All art aficionados should now without doubt have the PH Contemporary Gallery in the heart of Chelsea on their radar!!
