The home of Harper's Bangkok space, in the background. Photo courtesy Siam Motors Group.
Art galleries have been closing at an alarming clip lately, but today brings news of an expansion, and an international one at that: New York–based dealer Harper Levine is planning to open in Bangkok next spring.
Harper’s, as his gallery is known, will be located in a 2,500-square-foot space in the Siam Patumwan House, the new headquarters of Siam Motors Group in central Bangkok. It is a short walk from the Jim Thompson House, a famed historical home and art center, as well as the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
The new location follows a pop-up show that Harper’s staged in the Thai capital last year at the One Wall Art Foundation, in Siam Motors’ former building, with many of the gallery’s artists, including Stacy Leigh, Lumin Wakoa, and Sung Hwa Kim.
Levine started out as a writer and traveled throughout the region in the early 1990s. “Going back to Southeast Asia has been percolating in my mind for over 30 years,” he said by phone yesterday. Some Thai collectors invited him to visit after the Art SG fair in Singapore in 2023, and he’s kept going back.
“The best part of my recent trips to Bangkok has been making close friendships with a core group of Thai collectors,” Levine told me. “Their unrivaled hospitality is a thing of beauty, as is the way they interact with each other.”
He’s putting together a multi-pronged venture, with an exhibition space, an advisory focused on Southeast Asian clients, and a hospitality program that will aim to help art types travel the country.
“The culinary scene is on fire, wellness is prioritized and accessible, and Bangkok is remarkably safe,” Levine said. “It’s also extremely affordable by Western standards.” An artist residency is on the calendar to begin in the third quarter of 2026.
The firm StudioMDA, which has done spaces for Harper’s, Marian Goodman Gallery, and a long list of other dealers, is handling the design. One show a year at the new spot will showcase a “local or regional artist, likely curated independently,” Levine said.
The dealer, who first sold rare books, currently has four locations in Manhattan (three in Chelsea, the other on the Upper East Side), and one out in East Hampton, N.Y.
Many American and European galleries have set their sights on Asia over the past decade, and while Hong Kong has long been the center of the action (all four mega galleries and the three big auction houses are there), Seoul has been gaining ground, boosted by Frieze‘s 2022 arrival.
Thailand has been gaining international attention as arts institutions open one after another. The Kunsthalle Bangkok began last year, and the Khao Yai Art Forest followed this year in a rural area northeast of Bangkok; the patron Marisa Chearavanont is behind both projects. Another major museum, Dib Bangkok, led by businessman Purat (Chang) Osathanugrah, is slated to open in December.
But Levine is the first notable Western dealer to enter the fold. “Through art and my close friendships with my Thai crew, I want to become a kind of cultural ambassador,” he said, “encouraging and helping Western collectors to visit Thailand, engaging in cross-cultural dialogue, and trying to learn a little serenity from my Thai friends who operate with tremendous grace and kindness"—Andrew Russeth