With a world in crisis and an art market spinning out of control, ace art-world consultants Chen & Lampert deliver a quiz full of hard choices for Art in America readers from far and wide.
You’re a painter who blew up after a group show at a blue-chip gallery that is now clamoring to sign you. You’ve been on the roster at a small gallery that has been deeply committed to your career. Now you can jump ship, but will it turn you into a jerk? Take this quiz to find out if you should level up to the big leagues or stick with the scrappy farm team.
1. You’ll break the news to your gallery that you are leaving them by:
a) Handwriting a tear-stained thank you note
b) Shooting them a text that says “No ragrets 🖖”
c) Having your new lawyer issue a cease-and-desist letter
2. How will you deal with the guilt of abandoning the gallery that first supported you?
a) Paint through the pain in the $tudio
b) Sign every open letter that people forward you
c) Gorge on Van Leeuwen ice cream until you get mud butt
3. You will use the blue-chip gallery’s lucrative signing bonus to:
a) Take everyone at your old gallery to a four-star last meal
b) Stay for a month at a five-star hotel in Bora Bora
c) Shotgun a six-pack, break a mirror, get seven years of bad luck—then OD on an eight ball and use up your nine lives
4. Will more money and increased scale make your art boring and meaningless?
a) Possibly
b) Probably
c) Presumably
5. Can you keep your integrity while being obligated to make five art fair appearances every year?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Wait, what?
6. When the new gallery asks you to do “collaborations,” you will:
a) Schedule a painting jam session with Adrien Brody
b) Ideate with the cool execs from Skechers
c) Paint a Las Vegas mural with your new partner and Burning Man fave: Qu8ker Oats Man
7. What would be an OK opening dinner at your new gallery?
a) Joe’s Pizza and cold beers in a trash can with friends in the gallery’s office
b) Chef’s table at Per Se with carnivorous oligarch collectors
c) Exotic animal kebabs at the Masonic temple with Hans Ulrich Obrist
8. How will you answer the inevitable question: “Has success changed your art?”
a) “Has being a loser changed your stupid, ugly face?”
b) “It was my art that changed my success. See what I did there?”
c) “Ketamine and cold plunges changed my life.”
9. What do you owe your younger self?
a) Nothing
b) Everything
c) A copy of Nirvana’s Super Deluxe Edition In Utero 30th Anniversary 5-CD box set
10. How will you know if you made the right choice?
a) You will be audited for the first time
b) You will swap your longtime partner for your current fuckbuddy
c) You finally receive the validation you’ve been seeking since your first preschool crayon drawing
SCORES:
10–16: You aren’t the successful artist you once assisted, but you have gained a new understanding about why they kept their distance. Use your new money to hire a spiritual contractor who will build a bigger wall between you and the reality you now inhabit.
17–23: You didn’t enter the gallery scene because you wanted to scrape by. Use your new income to buy work from your old friends and make tax-deductible write-offs to all the nonprofits that helped you outgrow them.
24–30: It’s a dream to make money and foster new relationships, but you will never forget who was there for you. Use your heat as leverage to carve out slices of the metaphorical pizza pie for all who dine at your booth.
