I remember a particular oil on canvas, 60x80cm, 1994, that sat in my back room for three years because the artist had insisted on a specific, non-archival varnish that eventually turned the whole thing a sickly, jaundiced yellow. When the collector finally realized the damage, the conversation shifted from the beauty of the brushwork to […]
Most people approach a trip to see the modern art collections in european cities with a sense of misplaced reverence, as if they are walking into a cathedral rather than a highly curated showroom. They stand in line for three hours at the Pompidou or the Tate, staring at canvases they don’t quite “get,” feeling […]
I remember standing in the back of a drafty warehouse in 2004, watching a “specialist” team treat a delicate, large-scale mixed media piece like it was a crate of cheap-o-ware from a discount retailer. They were sweating, cursing, and moving with all the grace of a demolition crew, and I realized then that most people […]
I remember standing in a drafty, white-walled space in the Cotswolds back in 2008, watching a collector stare blankly at a series of mountain prints. He wasn’t looking at the light or the composition; he was squinting at the tiny font on the wall label, trying to figure out if he was being fleeced by […]
I remember sitting in a drafty studio in the late nineties, watching a young painter try to explain how his spray-painted canvases were “reclaiming the urban narrative” while simultaneously checking his phone for auction results. It was nauseating. People love to treat the history of underground street art as this grand, intellectualized saga of socio-political […]
Most people approach the idea of building a collection as if they are shopping for a new sofa—they look for something that “matches” the rug or fills a void on a blank wall. It’s a polite way of saying they are merely decorating, and frankly, it’s a waste of both your money and the artist’s […]
I remember sitting in a dimly lit corner of a London auction house twenty years ago, listening to a man in a bespoke suit explain the “sophisticated complexities” of liquidity management. He spoke about how loans between institutions work as if he were describing the inner workings of a star, using enough jargon to make […]
I remember the distinct, sickening sound of a heavy oak frame hitting a concrete floor in my gallery back in ’98—a sound that felt less like breaking wood and more like a financial heart attack. I spent the next three hours on the phone with an agent who spoke in nothing but impenetrable legalese, trying […]
I remember standing in a drafty, converted warehouse in East London back in 2012, watching a young painter spend three weeks meticulously curating a lighting scheme, only to realize he’d forgotten to budget for the insurance or the actual cost of the floor space. Everyone tells you that pop-ups are this democratic, low-stakes way to […]
I remember sitting in the back of a drafty, unheated warehouse in East London back in ’98, watching three incredibly talented painters argue over the cost of a single industrial lightbulb. They were so busy curating the “vibe” and the revolutionary politics of their collective that they hadn’t even looked at a spreadsheet. It’s a […]