In late October, with Art Basel Miami Beach just over a month out, ARTnews reported some last-minute changes to the fair’s lineup since it had been announced in July, which saw eight exhibitors falling off the roster for various reasons. The changes came along with sources telling ARTnews that the organizer was having trouble filling the giant Miami Beach Convention Center.
With just over a week left before the fair opens to VIPs next Wednesday, ARTnews can reveal another switch-up: Ross + Kramer is out, and Ross + Co. is in, following an unexplained split between the gallery’s principals, Todd Kramer and Ryan Ross.
“A lot of people don’t realize that before Ross + Kramer, I’ve been in the art business forever,” Ross told ARTnews in a phone call. “I’ve had Arcature Fine Art in Palm Beach for almost 25 years now, and I live in Florida full time.” The gallery focuses on blue-chip secondary market material, he explained. “About fifteen years ago we opened in the Hamptons as Gallery Valentine, then it morphed into Ross + Kramer. Then we had a space in New York City. Todd helped to cultivate artists we represented.”
Ross played down the split with Kramer. “It’s just one of those things. I’m simplifying. I morphed Arcature Fine Art and everything into Ross + Co. We’re just moving in a different direction,” he said.
Kramer did not respond to requests for further information, sent via a staffer.
The changes appear to be happening very much at the last minute; the fair’s 2025 participating gallery list for Miami Beach lists Ross + Co, but the gallery’s name links to Ross + Kramer’s website. The Ross + Co page on Basel’s site, meanwhile, features a photo of a gallery bearing the Ross + Kramer name and lists the website rosscogallery.com, but that site was not functional until recently. Art Basel did not respond to ARTnews’s request for comment.
Kramer got some unwanted press in 2022, when a phishing scam removed 15 NFTs, valued at a total of $2.2 million, from his Ethereum wallet, including four apes from the famed “Bored Ape Yacht Club” collection. Within hours, some of them were recovered with the help of NFT platform OpenSea.
Ross + Kramer was operating galleries in New York and East Hampton before launching a location in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood of Miami Beach in 2023 with a show of artist Daniel Arsham. The gallery’s website, still under the Ross + Kramer name, lists a Miami show that just closed and indicates that its New York location is closed with its last exhibition coming down in July. The site lists represented artists like Raven Halfmoon and Erik Parker, along with secondary market pieces available by artists ranging from Nina Chanel Abney to Andy Warhol.
The gallery had never before participated in Art Basel Miami Beach, but had shown at multiple editions of Independent and Independent 20th Century. “Initially we weren’t planning on doing Art Basel Miami Beach,” said Ross. “We were on the wait list and then we got in.”
At the fair next week, Ross + Co. will present works by abstract artist Larry Poons, who has exhibited with Almine Rech and Yares Art. At its Alton Road home base, less than a mile from the convention center, the gallery will show blue-chip secondary market works by artists including Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Keith Haring, Robert Indiana, Yayoi Kusama, and Andy Warhol.
