MARC ASH
Remy-Toledo Gallery
Causes Biggest Buzz In NY

Story by Edward Callaghan
Photos by John Wegorzewski

HERE were over 50 gallery openings the same evening in Manhattan’s Chelsea, but the American debut of Paris-based artist Marc Ash at the Remy-Toledo Gallery created the greatest buzz among the collectors, curators and art scenesters that swarm the West 20s like honey bees.

And with good reason! Ash’s provocative and powerful commentary on the Holocaust, "this century of genocide," Tous Ensemble, had already been the sensation of the 50th Biennale in Venice. The collection drew staggering crowds to subsequent showings at Madrid’s Circulo des Bellas Artes and Milan’s Palazzo Reale where he was the first ever living artist to be displayed there –at the invitation of the president of Italy, no less.

It doesn’t hurt that he has the support of the estimable Posy Chisolm Feick of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. The globe trotting Ms. Feick, who calls New York, Milan, Venice, Palm Beach, Cuernavaca, Toronto and India home at various times, depending on her need to support great talents, pulled out all the stops to make Marc’s introduction a smashing success.

As a result, the opening was packed with Palm Beachers, Torontonians, Europeans and South Americans. There was even a contingent from Moscow!

Posy, gallery owner Asher Remy-Toledo, Ash and his beautiful wife Martine, received their guests which included David Marwell, co-founder and executive director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust with associate director Ivy Barsky, jet-setters Pia Cafiero Ullman and Rose Marie Parravicini from Milan, Bianca Soto from Madrid, Gayle Wilson (Posy’s daughter) and Walter Moos from Toronto, Renata Countess Von bon Boyens from Cuernavaca, Susan Hill, David Coiro, Jan Pederson, Beatriz de la Mora and Mezrahi Dany plus hundreds more.

Guests were met by a herd of limousines to shuttle them to Remy-Toledo’s spectacular three story gallery/home for a late supper of Moroccan savories created by Ora restaurant owner Hicham Enhaili and Sophia Salih.

Ash was particularly excited that the next stop for the collection will likely be the famed century and a half old Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, a concept that would never have been unimaginable a decade ago.