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.
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, staring at a stack of invoices for shipping, insurance, and lighting, wondering why a young painter in my stable thought a “complete guide to exhibiting” was something you could find in a glossy textbook or a university syllabus. They all thought it was about the mystique—the […]
If you think getting a feature in a major art journal requires a glossy, five-figure PR agency and a black belt in corporate jargon, you’ve been sold a very expensive lie. I spent twenty-six years watching “experts” charge artists a fortune to send out generic, soul-crushing press releases that editors treat like junk mail. The […]
Oil on canvas, 40×40, 2014. I remember standing in my old gallery, watching a collector squint at a piece that was essentially just a mountain of dried, expensive mud. He was prepared to pay four figures because the artist had applied the paint with a trowel, but he couldn’t articulate why he felt the urge […]
I once spent a frantic Tuesday afternoon in a client’s basement, staring at a stack of oil on canvas that looked less like a curated investment and more like a slow-motion disaster. They had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on works by artists they loved, only to tuck them away in a space that […]
I remember sitting in the back of a crowded, overheated studio opening in the late nineties, watching a young painter try to explain away his blatant theft of a contemporary master’s color palette as “a dialogue with the lineage of the medium.” It was nonsense, of course. He wasn’t in a dialogue; he was just […]
I remember sitting in the back office of my gallery in 2008, watching a collector stare at a spreadsheet provided by a “specialist” that looked more like a work of fiction than a financial document. He was convinced his dusty assemblage of mid-century abstracts was a gold mine, but the numbers were inflated by nothing […]
Stop waiting for a lightning bolt of divine inspiration to strike your studio floor; it’s a romanticized lie that keeps talented people broke and staring at blank canvases. I spent twenty-six years watching artists agonize over the “sacred mystery” of how artists find their subject, as if they were waiting for a sign from the […]
I remember standing in the back of a studio in 1998, watching a young painter spend three weeks meticulously applying translucent layers to a portrait, only for the finished piece to look muddy, flat, and frankly, cheap under the gallery lights. Everyone in the academy had taught him that glazing was this mystical, ethereal way […]
If you think “how gallery marketing works” involves a high-priced publicist, a glossy coffee-table catalog, or some mystical ritual of sending invitations to the right socialites, I have some rather sobering news for you. For twenty-six years, I sat in my gallery and watched people mistake vanity for visibility. Most of the “marketing” people talk […]
I remember standing in the back of a cavernous, drafty exhibition hall in Basel, nursing a lukewarm espresso and watching a young painter stare in sheer terror at a spreadsheet of booth fees and shipping logistics. Everyone tells you that an art fair is your “big break,” a magical portal where collectors descend to shower […]