The other day the hardlooking staff noted that Art Shark Damien Hirst had dumped his longtime partner Gagosian Gallery, which last year, as the New York Times Artsbeat blog reported, “gave Damien Hirst all 11 of its spaces around the world to show his spot paintings.”

Whose return on investment was, well, spotty – at least according to this Businessweek piece.

Now comes this follow-up Times piece:

Artist’s Exit Sets Back Gagosian Gallery

Just a week ago Damien Hirst, the famously provocative British artist, was at Art Basel Miami Beach, hanging out at the party at SoHo House for which Larry Gagosian, the superdealer, was a co-host. According to people who were there, nothing seemed amiss. But a few days later, on Thursday, Mr. Hirst stunned the art world by announcing that he was leaving the Gagosian Gallery, where he has been represented for 17 years.

It wasn’t the only piece of bad news Mr. Gagosian has received in recent days. It came a week after David Zwirner, the Chelsea dealer, said he was organizing a show of new work by Jeff Koons, a longtime Gagosian artist, and a day before The Art Newspaper reported that Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist, was “in the process” of leaving Gagosian. (On Friday night, a spokeswoman for the gallery said that it was “reviewing the parameters of our working relationship with Ms. Kusama.”)

And now the art world is reviewing the parameters of its working relationship with Larry Gagosian.