Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Mary Dinaburg

Mary Dinaburg has over 30 years of art industry experience, with extensive knowledge of the Asian art market. She is the founder of DinaburgArts LLC, providing curatorial advice and consultation for galleries, museums, institutions, and corporations, with a focus on business development and cultural branding. Her expertise also includes acquisition and de-accession of Post-Impressionist and Modern masters as well as established and emerging international Contemporary artists.

Having recently returned to New York, Mary is now involved in a variety of projects both in the United States and abroad.

During the 1980s, Mary served as the director of Jack Shainman Gallery. In 1993, she founded the art agency, DinaburgArts, where she not only continued her work in exhibitions and sales but also deepened her involvement in acquisitions and de-accessions.

DinaburgArts was one of the first agencies to bring fine art to the fashion industry. This started with Saks Fifth Avenue when Mary developed the “Saks Project Art” program, making contemporary art an integral part of the corporation’s identity and branding. Since then, DinaburgArts has worked with other brands like Hermès, and Firmenich. Additionally, Mary has consulted the Kirov Theatre in St Petersburg Russia on their cultural marketing; worked with CEC-Artslink on marketing strategies for nonprofit organizations; instituted a corporate art collection at 14 Wall Street; provided management consulting to Maison Gerard; and for three years curated Gallery W52. Mary also served as advisor and curator to the international law firm, Clifford Chance; establishing a comprehensive curatorial program intended to motivate both employees and clients, as well as broaden the firm’s cultural branding. This was achieved through revolving exhibitions, an acquisitions program, educational lectures, tours, events, and the law firm’s three-year sponsorship of The Armory Show.

From 2000 onwards, Mary expanded her services into the Asian art market. Focusing her attention in South Korea and China (Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, and Hong Kong), Mary connected major international art galleries and artists – including Michael Werner, Sperone Westwater, Julian Schnabel, Sigmar Polke and William Wegman – with key collectors in Asia.

From 2006 to 2016, Mary partnered with Howard Rutkowski to create Fortune Cookie Projects. The company played two cross-cultural roles: introducing major international artists – spanning from Impressionism and Modernism through Contemporary practitioners – to the Asian market and to bringing established and emerging artists from the Asiatic region to the West. Fortune Cookie Projects also worked with the Royal Academy of Arts (London) to establish the Encounter exhibitions in Asia and the Middle East.

DinaburgArts continues to have an active presence in Asia and Europe, and having recently relocated to New York, Mary is currently working on a number of US based projects.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. […] Mary Dinaburg spoke to Praxis once before about art legacy planning. This time around she spoke about DinaburgArts LLC. Established in the early 1990s, the company has undergone many changes just as its namesake has done. Dinaburg Arts was founded to do something more logical than the way that the art world worked at the time – that is, to combine the various roles of art business rather than having specialized individuals for each component from curation to dealing to consulting and educating. The first project was working with a law firm to create multiple programs from branding to exhibitions as well as building a collection. Dinaburg also collaborated with Saks Fifth Avenue to use some of their windows as small white cubes. It is little projects like these that are slightly out of the mainstream that have been a signature of Dinaburg Arts. These days what Dinaburg Arts specializes in is art strategy. To hear more from Mary Dinaburg, including stories from her time living and working in Asia for many, many years, listen to the complete interview. […]

  2. […] Mary Dinaburg spoke to Praxis once before about art legacy planning. This time around she spoke about DinaburgArts LLC. Established in the early 1990s, the company has undergone many changes just as its namesake has done. Dinaburg Arts was founded to do something more logical than the way that the art world worked at the time – that is, to combine the various roles of art business rather than having specialized individuals for each component from curation to dealing to consulting and educating. The first project was working with a law firm to create multiple programs from branding to exhibitions as well as building a collection. Dinaburg also collaborated with Saks Fifth Avenue to use some of their windows as small white cubes. It is little projects like these that are slightly out of the mainstream that have been a signature of Dinaburg Arts. These days what Dinaburg Arts specializes in is art strategy. To hear more from Mary Dinaburg, including stories from her time living and working in Asia for many, many years, listen to the complete interview. […]

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