The art world runs on information asymmetry and it suits almost everyone except the artist. I write about what a commission split covers, why your work is priced wrong in both directions, how a gallery decides who to show, and what a collector is actually buying. I sold other people's work for twenty-six years and took half, so I can tell you exactly what that half was for and when it was not earned.
Don’t let the glossy coffee table books fool you; most academic texts on the history of underground street art are written by people who have never had to scrub spray paint off a brick wall or worry about a police siren at 3:00 AM. They treat it like a sterile, linear progression of “movements,” as […]
Stop treating the history of renaissance sculpture in italy like it’s some divine, untouchable mystery handed down from the heavens. If you listen to the academics, they’ll tell you it was all about the sudden, miraculous rebirth of humanism and the spiritual awakening of the soul. That’s a lovely story for a textbook, but it’s […]
I remember a young painter in my third year of running the gallery—a brilliant boy with heavy, textured oils—who walked in with a series of stunning canvases that he’d decided to “save money” on by using thin, flimsy clip-on borders he’d found online. I watched a collector walk right past his entire wall because those […]
Stop listening to the glossy brochures and the “experts” on YouTube who treat numismatics like a high-stakes game of Wall Street poker. They want you to believe that learning how to start a vintage coin collection requires a massive inheritance and a private vault, when in reality, most of them are just trying to sell […]
I remember standing in the corner of a crowded opening in Chelsea, clutching a lukewarm glass of Prosecco while watching a young painter try to “network” his way through a room of collectors. He was using every rehearsed, hollow pleasantry in the book, looking less like a creator and more like a man reading a […]
I remember standing in the back of a drafty white-cube space in 2008, watching a collector squint at a massive, backlit print of a misty pine forest. He wasn’t looking at the composition or the light; he was trying to figure out if the price tag was a reflection of the artist’s talent or just […]
If you think a “vintage” label and a heavy price tag are the same thing as excellence, you aren’t collecting—you’re just being subsidizing a dealer’s lifestyle. I spent twenty-six years watching people walk into my gallery and mistake mere prettiness for provenance, and I see the same mistake happening in the glassware market every single […]
Most people approach the idea of building a collection as if they’re decorating a hotel lobby—buying whatever looks “right” above a sofa or matches the rug. It’s a polite, expensive way to waste money. If you’re looking for a guide on how to curate a home art gallery that simply tells you which frames look […]
The art supply industry wants you to believe that mastering color is some high-minded, mystical alchemy reserved for the masters, but they’re mostly just trying to sell you expensive, pre-mixed tubes that lose their soul the moment they hit the canvas. I remember sitting in my gallery back in the nineties, looking at a landscape […]
Stop wasting your inheritance on those “complete masterclass” kits that arrive in a shiny box filled with nothing but mediocre pigment and pretension. I spent twenty-six years watching well-meaning beginners throw money at expensive, pre-mixed sets, thinking that a heavy price tag would somehow bypass the grueling necessity of understanding medium chemistry. If you are […]