With a world in crisis and an art market spinning out of control, ace art-world consultants Chen & Lampert deliver hard truths in response to questions sent by Art in America readers from far and wide.
I fired my gallery of 25 years after they refused to release me from a contract that forbade me from selling my work anywhere else in the United States for two years. I was their top-selling artist for a while and tried negotiating, even offering a cut of sales, but they still refused. Leaving them was incredibly hard and felt like committing career suicide; but since then I’ve been doing great and am free to sell my work anywhere! But alas, there’s a new problem. I discovered that they damaged over $50,000 worth of my work and lied to the insurance company to avoid paying the claim. The gallery owner who made millions in sales off me is now acting like I am a pariah. He has also brought in other artists to copy my work. Does that seem normal, and am I at fault here?
Be very careful, as “normal” and “fault” are triggering words. Is it normal to live in a capitalist society that values creative expression only as a salable commodity? Whose fault is it that insolvent artists without gallery representation must knock off copies of your work to survive? The scenario you’ve described is unacceptable, but not uncommon. Every time we hear about someone getting screwed by the sheisty art world it reminds us that selling out a show is inextricably tied to liquidating your heart.
But hang on: You fired your gallery? Usually it’s the gallery who dumps the artist. Quitting or leaving makes more semantic sense, but perhaps you rightly fired them because, as it turns out, you can prosper solo. If they made millions off you, then presumably you did okay despite being restricted from selling elsewhere. Maybe you realize in retrospect that you never should have entered into such a restrictive arrangement, so feel blessed that it has ended. Think of that damaged art and the $50,000 as a token kill fee for being able to live without bad bosses.
While we are highly litigious, we are not lawyers and cannot say with certainty that you have a copyright case. You may have a lawsuit if your former exclusive gallerist is selling knockoffs, but unless they are signing them with your name, it may very well be their own bad creative work. Other artists ripping you off is no doubt atrocious, but we live in a postmodern world where appropriation, homage, and being a copycat are all muddled concepts. It sucks to be cucked, but maybe this will propel you to start making work so boldly ugly that no one will dare give it a second look. You’ll win, in a way.
For some incalculable reason, I was not listed as one of the 100 top art world players in a prominent magazine’s annual ranking. I was positioned in the top 30 for many years in a row, and now I suddenly do not exist. I want to pen a very sharp letter but have held back thus far to appease my wife. She believes they may ban me from the list forever if I make a stink. Should I listen to her, or pursue an answer from them?
Oh no, CEO, your speculative bubble has burst and people are hedging their bets against you. The art market is a lot like the stock market in that every once in a while it has to make a correction in order to keep moving forward. Since art world rankings are essentially rigged, with no definable formula for calculating “power,” your removal is less a sell-off than a polite kiss-off from the inner sanctum. Rest assured, no one wants to stop taking your money. You simply have one less credential to flash at dinner in St. Barts or Lake Como. Listen to your wife. Spend more on art, throw your weight around in a highly visible way, get photographed doing it, and watch your stock recover.
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