I remember standing in the middle of a drafty warehouse in 2008, surrounded by thirty uncratered canvases and a mounting pile of invoices that made my stomach do slow, sickening flips. Everyone tells you that preparing a large scale art exhibition is about the grandeur of the vision or the emotional weight of the work, […]
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 treating a trip to see the modern art collections in European cities like a pilgrimage to a holy site where you aren’t allowed to ask about the price tag. I spent twenty-six years watching tourists and wide-eyed collectors wander through the Pompidou or the Tate, nodding sagely at canvases they didn’t understand, while the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, staring at a landscape by a young painter who had just been told his work was “priceless” by a boutique dealer in London. He was sweating, clutching a contract that essentially treated him like a charity case, convinced that the mystery of the market was some […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2008, staring at a landscape oil on canvas, 60x40cm, 1994, while a very wealthy, very litigious collector paced the rug outside. He was convinced a microscopic hairline crack in the varnish was a sign of “structural instability” and wanted his money back. He hadn’t read the paperwork, […]
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 […]