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"LONDON \u2014 That Haunch of Venison will stop representing artists has come as a surprise to many \u2014 not least to the gallery staff, blissfully unaware of the plan until just hours before it was announced. A source close to the gallery has described them as being \u201Cin a state of shock\u201D following the bombshell.Auction house Christie\u2019s, which has owned the gallery since 2007, has decided that Haunch of Venison will concentrate exclusively on the secondary market. In the proposed reorganization, the gallery\u2019s headquarters in London will operate as an exhibition space for the auction house\u2019s private sales arm. The gallery in Fitzrovia, as well as the New York branch in Chelsea, will close down after the end of their current exhibitions.\u201CPrivate sales at Christie\u2019s have been growing exponentially and the decision was made that\u2019s where the focus should be,\u201D the gallery\u2019s international director Emilio Steinberger told Bloomberg, shortly after the news was broken by art market newsletter Baer Faxt.In the UK, employment laws mean that the restructuring is at consultation stage. This will last a month, after which the staff will be formerly informed of their fate. The 21 employees (in both London and New York) currently listed on the Haunch of Venison website, and potentially more, are likely to be seriously affected. While some may find new positions at the auction house, others \u201Cwill not come under the Christie\u2019s umbrella,\u201D said Steinberger.\u201CI had no sense this was going to happen whatsoever,\u201D said painter Justin Mortimer,&amp;nbsp;who joined the gallery\u2019s roster only 14 months ago,&amp;nbsp;told&amp;nbsp;ARTINFO UK. \u201CEveryone is hung out high and dry.\u201D He&amp;nbsp;added that the Haunch team had been \u201Cvery supportive\u201D as soon as they found out. &amp;nbsp;The shock provoked by the news suggests a major disconnect between the gallery staff and Christie\u2019s&amp;nbsp;senior management. By many accounts, Haunch of Venison was on the up. The grand reopening of the original space in September 2011, as well as the launch of a second gallery North of Oxford Street last March, sent a confident message. So did the move in New York from the gallery\u2019s Rockefeller Center HQ to Yvon Lambert\u2019s former space in Chelsea. Haunch of Venison, it seemed, was finally finding its feet, having at long last overcome the prejudice against its unholy marriage to Christie\u2019s. Why, then, decide to terminate it so abruptly?One of the most plausible explanations is that Christie\u2019s simply felt the operation would be more lucrative if scaled down and dedicated to private sales \u2014 a part of the business which has surged in the last few years. ARTINFO\u2019s Rachel Corbett reported&amp;nbsp;that insiders have suggested Christie\u2019s owner Fran\u00E7ois Pinault had never intended the gallery to be a permanent venture. Some whisper that it was used to attract important estates such as Tom Wesselmann\u2019s, represented by Haunch of Venison since 2009. Others have claimed that the French collector was very hands-on, starting to represent artists or taking them off the roster on a whim. None of these speculations can be verified, but the gossip is nonetheless indicative of a deep-seated malaise.One thing is certain: When Haunch of Venison\u2019s founders Harry Blain and Graham Southern sold the gallery to Christie\u2019s, they effectively sounded its death knell. If the partners didn\u2019t know it at the time, they quickly found out. They first stayed on to run the gallery, but left in 2010 to launch a new venture, BlainSouthern. Several artists, including Bill Viola and Matt Collishaw, followed them. \u201CI'm looking forward to getting back to working more closely with the artists,\u201D Blain said back then. \u201CA large organization sometimes pulls you away from that.\u201DFrom its creation in 2002 to its acquisition by Christie\u2019s in 2007, Haunch of Venison had enjoyed a gilt-edged reputation. The secondary market&amp;nbsp;was said to be a healthy part of the business, which also had the gallery working with the likes of Keith Tyson, Damien Hirst, and Zhang Huan. But the art world never forgave the gallery its new owner. Haunch of Venison had shown at Frieze Art Fair since the event\u2019s creation in 2003, but was turned down in 2007 \u2014 the equivalent of losing the industry\u2019s seal of approval. Subsequently, the gallery was barred entry from most major art fairs, having to make do with lesser events such as Art Stage Singapore and Expo Chicago.Haunch of Venison did find an outlet at TEFAF Maastricht, and yesterday a fair spokesman told ARTINFO UK that \u201Cas far as we are aware, they will exhibit this year.\u201D But this is very unlikely. In a statement seen by ARTINFO UK, the gallery announced it would not exhibit at TEFAF, nor at the soon-to-be-launched Art13 London.The end of Haunch of Venison as a primary market gallery confirms how uneasy the relationship between galleries and auction houses is \u2014 although some can work out. The purchase in 2006 of old masters specialist Noortman by Sotheby\u2019s was beneficial both for the allegedly heavily indebted gallery, and the auction house, which supposedly gained&amp;nbsp;\u201Ca critical foothold in the art-fair business,\u201D&amp;nbsp;our own art market expert&amp;nbsp;Judd Tully&amp;nbsp;wrote in 2011.&amp;nbsp;But things get more complicated when dealing with contemporary art. In the same article, Tully reminds us that Sotheby\u2019s bought a 50 percent stake in Deitch Projects in 1997, only to later sell it back to Jeffrey Deitch.&amp;nbsp;\u201CIt\u2019s not the business of the auction houses to manage and nurture artists\u2019 careers,\u201D art advisor Michael Frahm told ARTINFO UK, \u201Cand I think with this move, Christie\u2019s has clearly decided to focus on their core business.\u201D In 2012, Christie\u2019s private sales made \u00A3631.1m, up 26 percent from the previous year \u2014 a staggering 16 percent of global sales. Sometimes, being a successful gallery just isn\u2019t enough. \u201CWhat worries me,\u201D concludes artist Mortimer, \u201Cis that part of the art world is rubbing their hands, saying: \u2018I f*cking told you so\u2019.\u201DAdditional reporting by Julia Halperin, Shane Ferro, and Rachel Corbett"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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