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Gilles Dyan
Gilles Dyan is a French businessman and art seller. He is the president and founder of Opera Gallery, one of the most prominent networks of art galleries in the world. The latter boasted 13 branches as of 2019: in Asia, the Middle-East, the United States and Europe. In 2014 – i.e. twenty years after the first gallery was launched in Singapore – the holding group generated 190 million euros in revenue, an increase compared to the previous year[1]. In 2016, 85 people were working for the group which then owned nearly 7000 pieces of art[2]. Opera Gallery’s economic model rests upon a universal vision of art, with its various galleries exhibiting works by masters from the late 19th and 20th centuries (Picasso, Miró, Chagall, Botero…), alongside contemporary or emerging artists (Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung, Niki de Saint Phalle, George Condo, Keith Haring, Manolo Valdés, David Kim Whittaker, Andy Denzler, Lita Cabellut…). The cities Opera Gallery opened branches in also play an essential role in the economic model of the group run by Gilles Dyan. Each gallery is located in the luxurious neighbourhood of a prominent international metropolis, such as Madison Avenue in New York, New Bond Street in London, rue Saint-Honoré in Paris or Orchard Turn in Singapore. Such locations, where a great number of luxurious brands can be found, provide Opera Gallery with maximum visibility and visits from numerous collectors and art enthusiasts.

Biography
The son of two teachers, Gilles Dyan was born on October 1st, 1960, in Tunisia. He began his career in France in the late eighties as a clerk in a billposting company. Right after graduating from high school, he began soliciting advertisers during the week and dedicated his weekends to door-to-door selling with a friend. He thus went around the suburbs of Paris (Sarcelles, Garges-lès-Gonesse or Argenteuil) with paintings and lithographies from young artists before trying his luck in hypermarkets and malls in Créteil, Rosny or La Défense. Sponsored by banks, the two business partners opened basic art galleries they called “Les Peintres de demain” (“Tomorrow’s painters”, in English) in then quickly-expanding malls. That very business – which targeted housewives and average-income families – was such a success that Gilles Dyan quit his advertisement job to focus on art dealing, a role he learned gradually although he had shown great predispositions for it early on. He was however slowed by the economic crisis that followed the Gulf War in the early nineties. The two business partners found themselves abandoned by the banks they had been working with. They had to give up their commercial activities and shut down their galleries, including a small Parisian one they had launched a few years before, right next to the Bristol Hotel (in the area of Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where Opera Gallery Paris now stands). Yet, the contacts he had developed during those years dedicated to discovering the art field allowed Gilles Dyan to bounce back, in Singapore this time. In 1993, a fair organiser he had previously met at his Parisian gallery offered him to participate to his project – “Trésor” – for free. The former needed Gilles Dyan to find other sellers for an art fair he was launching in the Southern-East Asian city-state in order to pay for the booth. The operation proved a success with around thirty paintings sold in three days[2], so much that, the following year, Singapore Tourism Board[3] offered Gilles Dyan to open his very first gallery in the archipelago with his partners from the fair. Six months later, the young art dealer launched his Parisian gallery at 356 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. This marked the beginning of the Opera Gallery saga. The name was chosen on account of its international and cultural consonance.

Economic model
From the late nineties on, Gilles Dyan worked on expanding his network of galleries with the support of local investors. After Singapore and Paris, new branches thus opened in high profile locations such as New York, Miami, Hong Kong, London, Seoul, Monaco, Geneva, Dubai, Beirut, Aspen and Zurich. In its acquisition policy – which is essentially done on the secondary market –, Opera Gallery often resorts to partners (art dealers, brokers…). So as to promote the exhibited artists and the brand, the team also participates in co-branding operations alongside insurance companies, banks, jewelers and luxury brands, in addition to organising exhibitions and loaning pieces of art to cultural institutions and museums around the world.

Over the past years, Opera Gallery has taken part in numerous international art fairs (BRAFA in Brussels, Pavillon des arts et du design in Paris and London, Art Miami, Masterpiece in London…), thus breaking with a positioning that had kept the brand far from such activities until then, probably because of the exponential growth of the group created by the ambitious Gilles Dyan and the bitterness his quick ascent may have caused[2]. “''The globalisation of art is compelling the great figures of this field to reconsider their approach. It is increasingly important for galleries like mine to offer their painters, sculptors, plastic artists or video makers a global coverage. The promotion of the artists’ work can no longer be seen as local; it has to be international. We must have a very wide range of action to support their ratings''”, Opera Gallery’s director stated as early as 2012[4]. He then wished to explain his strategy and the collaborations his network of galleries developed around the world to both enhance and sell the artists’ work pieces of art.

Close collaborators
Family plays an important role in Gilles Dyan’s professional life. His daughters, sons-in-law, nephews and cousins hold key positions in the group. Two of his nephews are thus in charge of a branch, respectively in Geneva (Jordan Lahmi) and New York (Gregory Lahmi)[5]. As he was very keen on transposing that approach to his company, the businessman managed to create a network of loyal collaborators. For instance, Stéphane Le Pelletier has been the director of the historical gallery of Singapore for nearly twenty years. Gilles met him in Paris when the former was working in fashion. Fatiha Amer, the director of the Parisian branch, has similarly been working with Gilles Dyan for twenty years. Charles Senouf also stands as one of the group’s key figures. He overviewed the opening of several branches around the world and currently works as the operations manager after running Opera Gallery’s financial department for around 15 years.

Exhibitions
Besides its permanent collection, each gallery organises (in average) four thematic exhibitions or solo shows on a yearly basis. In September 2019, Opera Gallery’s Seoul branch launched an exhibit dedicated to the “controversial genius” Bernard Buffet (1928-1999). In June and July of that year, the Hong Kong gallery exhibited the work of André Brasilier, following similar shows in the South Korean capital in May and in London in late 2018. Spanish painter Lita Cabellut – who is under contract with Opera Gallery –, has similarly exhibited her work in Opera Gallery London, New York and Seoul over the past years. In late 2018, Opera Gallery also organised an important exhibition dedicated to Marc Chagall’s work in New York (1887-1985) as well as in Paris in September 2019. Gilles Dyan stands as one the most prominent dealers of Chagall’s art in the world. In 2016, the directing team at Opera Gallery won a lawsuit against Gailord Bovrisse, a French art dealer living in Belgium they had bought a piece from two years before. Bovrisse had sold the group a painting by Chagall, L’âne musicien à Saint-Paul (1975), for 400.000 dollars, before admitting the piece was a fake and going under the radar without delivering it nor paying the money back. Arrested in Waterloo, Belgium, in August 2016, the swindler was ordered to pay Opera Gallery 2.4 million dollars in damages[6].

Over the past three years, Opera Gallery has promoted the work of artist Manolo Valdés notably through an exhibition featuring monumental pieces on Orchard Road at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore between September 2017 and March 2018, at Dubai International Financial Centre from March 2018 to March 2019 and at Berkerley Square in London in 2019.

The group aims at transforming the gallery experience through increasingly sophisticated scenography, such as the reconstitution of the New York subway network in Geneva on the occasion of Keith Haring’s Party of Life exhibition in October 2019. Opera Gallery also makes it a point of honour to represent new international talents including numerous Korean artists.

References

[1] BFM Business – BFMTV – Journal de New York, November 8th, 2014

[2] Art Media Agency – Art Taipei – Moisson pour la scène de l’art en Asie, December 2nd, 2016

[3] Singabuzz – Le webzine des francophones de Singapour, June 17th, 2016

[4] Agefi Magazine – Nicolas Duchêne, October 30th, 2012

[5] Artnet news – news.artnet.com, September 29th, 2015

[6] Le Journal des arts – lejournaldesarts.fr – Nathalie Eggs, September 12th, 2016