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.
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 […]
Stop performing for the security guards. There is this pervasive, exhausting myth that if you walk into a museum solo, you are somehow required to adopt a look of profound, intellectual suffering—as if you’re one wrong glance away from being exposed as a fraud. Most people treat a solo trip like a high-stakes exam they […]
I spent twenty-six years watching people treat art like a commodity and even more time watching collectors treat their music like mere clutter. There is a particular brand of nonsense floating around the internet lately—expensive, aesthetic-focused nonsense—suggesting that you need custom-built mahogany shelving and a professional archivist to manage your library. Let’s be clear: if […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Stop listening to the romanticized nonsense about the “starving artist” finding inspiration in a drafty, overpriced loft in a gentrifying warehouse district. There is nothing poetic about a damp ceiling that ruins a £3,000 canvas or a landlord who views your creative practice as a mere tax write-off. When artists start searching for how to […]
I remember standing in the back of my gallery in 2004, watching a young, talented painter try to explain to a serious collector why his landscape looked more like a bruised plum than a sunset. He had spent three years mastering brushwork but hadn’t spent three minutes mastering his pigments, and frankly, the lack of […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, nursing a lukewarm espresso and staring at a stack of invoices while a particularly talented painter sat across from me, looking absolutely gutted because he thought he’d been “ghosted” by a dealer in London. He thought he hadn’t been “professional” enough, when the truth was far […]
I remember sitting in my gallery office in 2012, nursing a lukewarm Earl Grey, while a young painter called me in a state of absolute hysterics. One of his canvases had just “flipped” at an auction house for five times his original retail price, and he was convinced he was finally going to be able […]