Nina Johnson is a gallerist based in Miami.
As we head into Art Basel, after failing to overturn Florida’s six-week abortion ban and voting in a tyrant, I have been feeling a strong sense of unease and disillusionment. I’m absolutely put off and uninspired by the ineffectuality and repetitive nature of the art market that has grown up around us.
The election results have hit me, and so many others in our community, like a ton of bricks—and have left me heavy with an overwhelming feeling of futility and helplessness. Over the past year or so, as colleagues have shuttered their doors, I have come to realize that, with the growth of the art market, we have gained buyers but lost patrons. In the pre-COVID era, many dealers were reluctant to embrace the digital age. Through the pandemic, we quickly became attuned to the virtual space, churning out studio videos, PDF portfolios, and digital content that painted detailed and alluring pictures of the artist at work. In doing so, we broadened our audiences and normalized virtual acquisitions. But in doing so, did we give up on the idea of patronage?
I now regularly work with clients who are looking for a specific work. Maybe they are interested in the artist’s overall practice, but their desire is for a given object, believing that one rarefied piece is more virtuous than the others. This kind of selectiveness means rejecting the idea of supporting the overall practice. The old-fashioned patron has given way to mass consumerism, which has turned art into fashion and perpetuated an endless pornographic doomscroll masquerading as righteousness, but in reality is more akin to online shopping. With this shift, we have also given up on dialogue—dialogue that feels critically important in this moment, particularly as it relates to women and other marginalized voices.
Many artists have become complacent participants in this endless production loop, driven by the desire to build a “career” above all else. It is not uncommon to speak with artists who are producing three, sometimes four, solo exhibitions in a year. Often, if an artist goes six-to-nine months without a show on the calendar, people begin to wonder why. There was a time when one solo every two years was considered consistent, punctuated by a rare museum exhibition once a decade. How is this new pacing sustainable for anyone? And how does it produce meaningful work and allow for ample time to reflect and generate thoughtful discourse?
Turning the lens squarely on myself and my colleagues, I realize we—the dealers—are at the core of this shift: Squeezing artists to produce more for the next show, the next fair, the next offer, seduced by the flushness of the post-COVID market. We’re essentially prizing inventory over rigor and dialogue, when it is particularly crucial in cultural moments of deception and unrest that we slow down and find communities that foster support for their members.
So, what now? How do we move forward? My closest friend, a brilliant curator who is one of the strongest and most intelligent people I know, said it best: “We have to push everyone.” Let’s move into this fair season and demand more, not in terms of quantity but in terms of substance. Let’s demand more of ourselves, of the artists we show and collect, and of our patrons. In the darkest of times, culture can allow us—force us—to view ourselves and grow. If we are not engaged in this kind of self-criticality, what then are we striving for?
