In Minneapolis, the Weinstein Gallery represents some of the best-known living photographers, including Annie Leibovitz. It has placed works by gallery artists in major collections and major museums, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Walker Art Center, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, to name a few. The gallery’s top-selling artists include Alec Soth, the late Robert Mapplethorpe, and Vera Lutter.

The Weinstein’s Twin Cities location gives it a unique advantage in building relationships with sought-after artists. “In New York it’s pretty cutthroat about getting the artist and keeping the artist,” says Director Leslie Hammons. “But in Minneapolis, we’re really not competition for anybody, so a lot of really great artists want to do shows with us because they can, and it won’t interfere with their New York gallery.” The gallery hosts about eight exhibitions each year, but sales from exhibitions is only part of the revenue mix.

“We primarily do vintage resale work—vintage photographs that we buy outright from another person or another gallery and then we resell,” says Hammons. Many of these sales are happening at art fairs in New York, L.A., and Paris.

“The art fair scene is really burgeoning,” says Hammons. Across the globe, galleries and dealers are attending major fairs, such as Miami’s prestigious Art Basel, to stay relevant in the art world and make new connections with collectors. Weinstein Gallery attends three to four fairs a year.

Today, 60 percent of sales come from collectors outside of the Twin Cities, largely on the coasts. Hammons says [attending art fairs] “is absolutely necessary to maintain relationships with our New York and California clients.”