The salvos are flying in the art media world as several former staffers of Blouin Media get ready to launch a rival to its ArtInfo.com.
Ben Genocchio, former editor-in-chief of the website artInfo.com, said he has led a small house rebellion and hired seven former staffers for the new rival website, Artnet News, set to launch Feb. 24.
Louise Blouin, who owns Gallery Guide, Blouin Art+Auction, Modern Painters, Blouin Lifestyle and other art-connected sites in addition to ArtInfo.com plus show dailies, says talk of staff rebellions are greatly exaggerated.
“It was two junior-level people,” she claimed.
“I got fed up with Louise’s nonsense,” said Genocchio, who claims he resigned in late December and started his new job Jan. 2.
Blouin, at first, was diplomatic regarding Genocchio’s upstart operation, passing along a, “All I can say to him is the best of luck.”
But in the next breath she added, “Benjamin was fired. You want it. You got it.”
There appears to be no love lost, here.
“With any luck we will drive Louise out of business,” Genocchio said. When told that Blouin had said he was fired, he insisted that was wrong and produced a copy of his Dec. 12 resignation letter that circulated to staff.
The former publisher of Art+Auction, Kate Shanley, and the magazine’s associate publisher, Wendy Buckley, also landed at Artnet News as did Victoria Fuller, the senior vice president of business development at artinfo.com.
“They came over as our bread winners,” said Genocchio.
Blouin, however, insisted Shanley and Buckley were merely “consultants” whose contracts was not renewed. Shanley and Buckley could not be reached for comment.
“We are hiring,” she insisted. Art + Auction hired a new publisher, David Gersky, who had left the publisher’s job two years ago. “He loved it so much he came back,” she said.
“We are making money,” Blouin said. “We’ve been making money for three years now. We are no longer a startup.”
Blouin said the company is trying to negotiate an end to its lease at the Starrett-Lehigh Building on the West Side, which expires this year, and is moving to new offices in TriBeCa.
She said it was not true that the company was moving because it is being evicted.
“We are not being evicted,” she said. “We are moving out. We are moving to a new place with a lease to buy.”