Confessions of a Commercial Gallerist

Mid-week confession was always quiet. Just the art-priest on shift, waiting for his art world flock, alone in the confessional booth. It sounds like a blessing, but all the art-priests came to dread the hours of silent solitary contemplation. Bum going numb in the ornate mahogany booth, feeling purposeless and bored stiff. This week it was Fra Angelico’s turn to take confession. He was eternally hopeful, maybe to a fault. When the art-nuns used the chapel as a walk-through, on their way to the cloister, the vestry, somewhere else, the sound of their chatter always got his hopes up, only for them to be let down. He clasped his hands together, leaned his head against the seat and sighed, waiting, expectant and praying for — someone knocked on the mahogany door.

Fra Angelico’s heart leaped in his chest. He cleared his throat, mumbled a welcome. The door on the other side swung open. A shadowy figure, hazy and backlit. A crisp clean coat, shrunken and boxy all at the same time. Expensive and androgynous perfume. Clean fingernails. Clean shoes. Not an artist, even though the art-church served a parish almost exclusively made up of them. A critic? A curator?

‘A gallerist.’

Ah, alright then. How long since your last confession? Fra Angelico hadn’t seen a gallerist since… well, since just after Frieze week. Yes, yes, he wouldn’t be surprised.

‘This is my first confession.’

Ah! Then this is a blessing, a gift. A mercy! In confession the art-soul becomes lighter. All is transparent in the Kingdom of Heaven. Crisp fabric shifted against the wood of the bench, a sigh through the screen between them. Fra Angelico smiled. They could start at the very beginning, and Fra Angelico would dutifully listen.

‘I didn’t know anyone who was in the art scene or in the contemporary art world. I moved to London right out of university, I was applying for loads of jobs — 92 jobs exactly. I remember because I kept a spreadsheet. I hardly heard back from any of them. And I wanted to get to know London, walking around, going to shows and trying to see as much as I could.’

‘A friend of a friend’s sister’s boyfriend ran a theatre production company, and they wanted to get into doing contemporary art shows. They got me to curate it — 8 young painters in London. It is now my example for how NOT to do a show. We rented a space a bit out of the way, it was on for three days because it was that expensive. We installed the same day it opened, we took all the pictures on the night ourselves, didn’t get a professional in to take nice install shots. There was a huge crowd at the opening, loads of free champagne. It was a theatre way of doing things that doesn’t quite work for contemporary art. Then the rest of the time it was on, no one else came. We consigned the work for like 8 months, none of it sold, so it just sat in storage. Not great, but like, it wasn’t all bad. There were some really great artists in that show, they’ve gone on to do big things. I did studio visits with all of them, I’ve worked with some of them again since. I feel like my curatorial taste was vindicated, but nothing sold. So I think the guy felt like the show had been an experiment that failed. Like, I think he thought that maybe getting into art was going to be a kind of quick cash grab, easy money.’

Fra Angelico suppressed a smile, shook his head. That was the moment of first proper art-contact, but what of the jobs?

‘I don’t know if people know this, but when works are up for auction at Christies, Sotheby’s, Phillips, Bonhams, whatever auction house — they put them on display the week before, you can go and see them. I always try and go, I post the works I like on Instagram and do my like, top picks. But I had a job interview at an auction house, I didn’t get it, and the day after, Banksy shredded that work at Sotheby’s — d’you know the one. I’d gone to see it before it went to auction, posted it, someone at the BBC must’ve seen it because they called me up and asked me if I wanted to come on the 10 o’clock news to talk about it. It was the first time I’d been billed as a curator. I clipped the footage and put it on LinkedIn, and the auction house called me back up to ask if I wanted the job.’

‘I worked there and did everything else I could on the side. I curated pop up shows, wrote exhibition texts for other shows, wrote about artists for publications — I knew I didn’t actually want to work at an auction house forever. But while I was there, I met this art dealer, a second generation art dealer and all. Their Dad had run a gallery in Europe selling work for all the 20th century big boys — you’ll know them, they’ll be in the Tate Modern. Whenever this dealer was in London they’d come to all these small shows and things I was doing, they’d buy work, just generally being really supportive. Then they asked if I wanted to work on a show together, so I tried the young painters in London format again (some of them were literally the same artists) taking them over to Europe. Some of them were quite successful at this point — I basically pulled in favours, got some great artists, it did quite well. Work sold, it went better than the last time.’

‘After that, this dealer took me for dinner and said, you’re good at this, you should do your own thing, you should run a gallery. If you put together a business plan, take a couple of months, we’ll meet up again and let’s see if we can come to some sort of an agreement. I went away, spoke to people I knew who had their own galleries, were maybe a bit older. I put together a business plan, they made some tweaks — we came to an agreement.’

Fra Angelico glanced over at the screen, at the figure on the other side. Fra Angelico was a Dominican Friar from 15th Century Florence. He was unfamilar with the conventions of a business plan.

‘It was like this. A very conservative estimate of sales that showed us breaking even in year 4, turning a small profit in year 5 — pretty standard for a small business in the UK, why should a gallery be any different? We’d be 50/50 shareholders in the company, business partners. Them as the business director, me as the gallery director. I’d have full control and autonomy over the artists, exhibitions and creative direction of it. They put in £20,000 a year for the first 2 years to keep things running and cover initial costs. With sales, the artist would take 50%, I’d take 25% as a kind of commission/salary, 25% would go back into the gallery. We’d split the gallery’s 25% 50/50 but essentially it would stay in the gallery’s pot and be used if needed. We spoke to some lawyers, signed some documents — we opened the gallery 5 months later basically. They ended up putting £52,000 in over the first 2 years, so an extra £12,000 we weren’t expecting — I didn’t realise, when you’re looking round a commercial space you need £1,000 to get a building survey done. There were £3,000 of lawyers fees to sort out a four year leasehold, set up costs, renovations went over. But they just wrote it off as part of their investment.’

‘I want to be very transparent about having a business partner. I mean, I’m quite proud of it. I feel like — you know when you go into Dragon’s Den wanting to get your product in shops, and you come out with Peter Jones and like, he’s the one that gets things in shops, isn’t he? My business partner has 30 years experience in the art world, I’m proud of and excited about that, it feels like a nice stamp of approval. And then I also want to be transparent about it because, you know. All this time I’ve been in London, I’ve been trying to work out how the fuck these galleries are doing it. Mostly it comes down to three things: they themselves are independently wealthy, their family is wealthy, or they have a financial backer. It’s not uncommon. You either put your own money into it or someone else’s, and hope that if you cross the 4 year threshold you might start making money. So I want to be upfront about where the money comes from, the first couple of years has been paid for by my business partner. If we sell the same amount as last year, we should break even on our own this year. Not enough for me to make a living on the commission, but it works out.’

Fra Angelico nodded. And how does it work out — the business of it?

‘Before our gallery opened, I’d say to people, there’s loads of galleries in London, so there must be people buying art. Like, people must be selling. I’ve since found out that actually — not many people are actually selling. I’ve been doing it on the hope that if you build it they will come. Which has somewhat worked, I think it’s been good. It goes: do the show, document it as well as possible, disseminate the documentation as well as possible. We do good shows, work with good artists. I try and work with a diverse range of artists — diverse in terms of mediums, artistic backgrounds, as well as identities. Every time you do a show with a new artist you get enquiries from new people you’ve never heard from before. They’re interested in that particular artist but, they’re my contacts now I guess. I’ve got a massive spreadsheet of everyone who’s ever emailed the gallery, the reason they’ve emailed. I send out hundreds, literally hundreds of emails. I try and make it personal, think about what they’ve shown interest in in the first place, what they might be interested in generally. But mostly just letting them know what’s coming up. Like, we’ve sold work, a lot of work for some artists.’

Ah, well. That is a blessing, is it not? Fra Angelico offered thanks, and the gallerists shadow moved on the other side, perhaps nodding. And who were they selling work to? Purely out of curiosity.

‘Maybe because of the stage we’re at and the nature of what we programme, most of our collectors are based in London. We’ve sold things to industry people — other gallerists, curators, other artists, people who’ve made a bit of money and now want to support others coming up — that’s really nice. But our collectors for the most part, a lot of them are younger, creative, quite cool, actually. People come in and see stuff, maybe they’ll buy a painting without seeing it in person at a push. But people want to come and have a look. They want to know more about the work, they want to meet the artist, say hello and — it’s cute, they get excited about it. It’s people that I feel like, that might’ve been me if I’d gone a normal route and got a day job in like, I don’t know, advertising or marketing or something. Frustrated art lovers, clearly creative people who’ve got money but who’ve never had a chance or an outlet for that love. Now they’re in a position to be patrons for these artists as that outlet. They buy work from artists they’re interested in, as a way to find out more about it. If an artist does a panel talk, they sit in the front row. You know what I mean? They’re cool, I’ve been round to their houses for coffee, I email them about other shows on at other galleries and we go have a look together — I’ll introduce them to the gallerist. It’s nice, for now.’

‘We’re not at that level where it’s all the grubby investment types. Probably a couple years out from that. We might have reached the threshold of who we can attract while we’re here in this specific location. But that’s where art fairs come in. That’s why they’re important for galleries. Speaking to the other gallerists — which I do, I know most of them a little bit, so I ask them and for the most part they’re quite open, only they know how honest they’re being, but — fairs seem to be where everyone meets the bulk of their new clients. But anyway, because we show emerging, early career artists, it’s not the grubby investment crowd. Sometimes when they’re buying work, a collector will level with me and ask if this could be a good investment. I’ll answer honestly, if the artist has good things going on, things going well, stuff coming up, if they’re working on anything new and exciting. But I always stress that like, that shouldn’t be the reason you’re buying. Everyone’s always like oh, yeah. No, no, of course. Obviously it’s good to know but — no never. That sort of thing. But it makes sense that they have that in mind.’

‘The grubby investment thing is a side of things that I don’t have much experience with. I have friends who are artists, maybe getting successful enough that the work flips and has found its way to the secondary market, to auction or something. Friends have had solo shows where someone has tried to buy 10 works from it, obviously purely an investment move. It mainly happens to painters.’

Fra Angelico tensed. He was a friar, he worked here as an art-priest, but he was also a painter too. He needed examples, so he knew what to watch out for.

‘Ok, no names, but… A painter graduates from a London art schol in 2018. Has their first proper solo show at a small, maybe medium-ish gallery in 2019, ten paintings that are up for £10,000 each. Maybe for every painting there were 3 people interested in it. Then it’s pretty obvious how to decide who’s best placed to sell it to, who’s trustworthy in their intentions, who’s genuinely interested. But those paintings that sold for £10k back in 2019, one of them finds its way to auction 2 years later. It sells for £2.3 million. It’s not worth that much. The artist doesn’t see that money, or hardly any of it. But now everyone else that bought a painting for £10k thinks they can make a quick £2 million too. If you’re the gallery, you can’t price the new work at £2 million, that’s crazy, there’s no way to justify that. The painter is with a big blue-chip gallery now, they’ve got them on the primary market for £250k, which is still — you know. Huge numbers are hard to justify. But still, if the primary market is worth £250k, secondary is maybe worth £2.3 million— as soon as one comes up, if you had 3 people interested at £10k, now at £250k you have hundreds of people interested and they’re all fucking wolves in sheep’s clothing. How could you possibly try and work out what their intentions are? Of course they’re all interested in a quick flip.’

A quick flip sounds bad… but Fra Angelico wasn’t exactly sure why he should be wary of it. Surely, if the work is selling then, that’s good?

‘It makes it really hard to manage an artists career. I think it is part of a gallery’s role, to help an artist navigate things, the commercial aspect. You want to sell to someone who’s going to give something, not just take, collectors and patrons, someone invested in the artist’s career. You want artwork to stay where its placed, for a bit, for the most part. When you’ve got hundreds of people interested because they think it’ll be worth more the moment it leaves the gallery, it’s so much harder to discern. Galleries do try and enforce a 3 year no-resale clause in their contracts for collectors, but — it’s not legally binding.’

Fra Angelico huffed out a quick breath of relief, luckily the churches that had commissioned most of Fra Angelico’s work weren’t really looking to resell his paintings.

‘The gallery doesn’t want to be undermined or cut out of the transaction. If an artist can just take their work straight to auction, then, what’s the point of a gallery? And at auction, the prices are recorded, listed, transparent. With reselling works, that’s when you get into the unwritten rules and the etiquette of it all. If a collector wants to sell something, it’s polite to offer it back to the gallery first, give them right of refusal or sell it through them. Then at least the gallery might take another 10% cut on that. There was that New Yorker profile on Larry Gagosian, it went into how he’s made his money and it’s basically just by reselling what he’s already sold. Bouncing 10% off every time, somethimes from the buyer and the seller.’

‘But also for the artist, the gallery really should play a pastoral role. If a gallery’s taking 50% of sales, they should be earning that 50%. I was on a panel a couple months ago where someone from this bigger gallery was saying ‘oh it’s great! We get what we want, the artist gets what they want, we all drink champagne!’ And it’s like, no! So many galleries don’t earn their cut. If I’m working with an artist long term, I’m in the trenches with them. We are doing this shit together. I take it very seriously. I’m helping them get residencies and doing studio visits and sharing references, helping them discover what they’re interested in, acting as a sounding board. That pastoral role is so important! To back an artist and represent their interests.’

‘I think that’s why so many artists are keeping their smaller galleries, even as they get scooped up by bigger galleries as well, they’re keeping both. The bigger galleries have got sales teams, PR people and all that stuff, resources. But the smaller gallerists are down in the artist’s studio every month, they really know each other, they know their practice, perhaps since art school — while an artist can be a small fish in a big gallery pond, they can be THE big fish for those smaller galleries. Even with all the blue-chip resources, a whole team of people, they can’t give some artists the same kind of pastoral care that their original gallerist can.’

Well then surely this is a situation where everyone wins? Maybe we do all get to drink champagne? Fra Angelico chuckled, but the gallerist didn’t return the amusement.

‘Well, that relies on the bigger gallery letting an artist keep their smaller gallery. That’s the best case scenario, when we’re talking about competing with the big blue chip galleries. Some galleries might not agree to it, they might make an artist choose. And with galleries that big, that blue chip, that prestigious — they look good and they’ve got the resources to be good at what they do. It’s clever. Bigger galleries get to look philanthropic, but they also get to leave all the pastoral stuff to the smaller gallery for them to take care of. And I’m sure there’ll be limits on what the smaller gallery can do financially. Like maybe they’ll get a certain number of paintings a year, but there’ll be a cap on how much they can show. I imagine it’s a we’ll take it from here on the sales side of things.’

Fra Angelico pursed his lips. Ah yes, he could see the problem.

‘In an ideal world, it goes: you meet an artist, are interested in their work. You do a studio visit, maybe that leads to a group show. If that goes well, maybe a solo show. If they have a good experience working with you, if you work hard for them and put in the work behind the scenes then people remember it. You stick with each other, continue working together, rise up together. Maybe those bigger artists are then willing to give you smaller works to include in group shows with other artists who are at the start of their career, and raise interest for them too. I do believe that works, it happens, a rising tide lifts all ships.’

‘The opposite also happens though. Artists I’ve worked with — done the studio visit, group shows, solo show, they get more shows off the back of that — now they’re represented by another gallery, mid-size, very cool. You come back to have conversations about doing something else and now they have to check if that’s ok with the other gallery. And, I mean it’s frustrating for me, but it’s 100% the correct thing to do for that artist. I can understand why artists make those decisions for themselves, there’s no hard feelings. But it’s frustrating to lose out on those longer term relationships. Speaking to other gallerists, it sounds like it happens to them too. You can just tell when someone’s ready to go up the chain, when you’re working with someone and you know it’s going to be short-lived, they’ll get snatched up by a bigger gallery.’

‘There have been moments when I’ve worked with artists and had that feeling, and told them that I’m just not experienced enough to manage where they’re going. Like, I’m happy to be a trusted sounding board but I think you need someone more experienced, who knows that more speculative painting market, who knows who to sell to and who not to. That aspect of things can be overwhelming for the artist, the gallery needs to be able to handle it. And, my friends are artists. I hear about it all the time, how they’re being treated by galleries, how they’d like to be treated. I’m aware of what the right thing to do is, I want to be liked, I want to act with integrity, I want to be spoken of highly and do it properly, do right by the artist. Maybe in those moments, I could’ve been more cynical. I could’ve spotted the interest and said ‘ok, let’s capitalise on this, do another solo show, pressure on to make the same work again and again, feed the market and fulfil the demand’. I’d have made a lot of money but, I don’t know how good that would’ve been for the artist. You hope that if someone goes on to great success, they remember having a great experience and will still be up for a group show now and then. Call it the long game maybe.’

And does the long game work out? What does the future look like? Surely it isn’t bleak.

‘Well for the most part, it’s very hard for a small or mid-sized gallery to scale up. There’s just so many galleries in the pool right now, and there’s a real sense of the big names having a kind of market domination — it makes growth really difficult. What Jay Jopling did with White Cube, where you start with a tiny box space in 1993 and now you’re THE WHITE CUBE. Or Maureen Paley starting out in a derelict house in East London, now celebrating the gallery’s 40th birthday. I don’t think that’s possible any more. You see all these articles about the scene floating around at the moment, and it’s — yeah it’s nice. It makes it all seem exciting, like something’s happening, like it’s doable. It helps the ecosystem. But my worry is that this rise of the baby gallery stuff is propping up a wider cultural scene that won’t materially thank us in the long term. It’ll be interesting to see who’s still going in 5 years time. Because it won’t be everyone.’

Fra Angelico paused. But it’s a never ending churn. Galleries in London open and close all the time. Surely there’s a sense of solidarity between the smaller galleries, or a sense that you’re all in it together so — no?

‘It’s — there’s a version of this that I’ve said publicly, and a version I’ll say to you. With this rise of the baby galleries, it is nice. It’s all very collegiate, there’s skills sharing, information sharing, there are groupchats. Yeah, lovely. But it can also be very competitive, toxic as fuck. You have to make a conscious effort not to compare yourself to everyone else. We’re all at similar stages and there are so many of us — you’re always seeing what other people are doing and the opportunities they’re getting, maybe the opportunities you’re not.’

‘Like, if you’re finally ready to apply for Frieze, will you get it first time? You know who did and who didn’t. And if you get in, that’s not the end of it — will your booth win the Camden Art Prize, will Tate acquire something? Not getting in your first year might actually be a huge relief, pressure off, never going to happen. Not getting in might be for a whole host of reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of your proposal. It might be a numbers game, it might be because you’ve not done Liste or another fair before. It might be trends, moods and taste, it might be because you’re not on the hot-list. That’s got nothing to do with what you’ve proposed. Those fairs are so expensive, especially in New York. So many small galleries do them, you see the size of the booths, you know they cost $12k, low end. Take in the cost of flights, accommodation, shipping and all that kind of stuff — doing the fair is like, what, $20k? I’ve not sold a work for more than £5k. If we pretend there’s no conversion rate, take your 50% cut, max pricing everything at 5k — you’ve got to sell 8 works just to break even. How hard are you realistically hustling to make that happen, how possible is that? Everyone’s got their way of doing it, I think more transparency about how it happens is a good thing.’

‘It’s easier said than done, but comparison is pointless. The thing I’ve really had my eyes opened to, from running a gallery, is how important and insidious PR is. It is such a pay to play thing. You probably don’t notice it as a punter. Maybe some shows just get a bunch of press and you think it’s because it’s a cool show with a cool artist — maybe it is. But it also might be because the gallery payed a PR agency thousands to publicise the show. Like, some magazines bill themselves as a very highly curated platform— you go to their website and it’s loads of cool shows featured. They’ll feature you if they think the show is cool enough, we’ve had a couple of shows in there. But I’ve also been sent their PR pack where if you pay them quite a bit of money you’ll get every show featured. No one will tell you what the difference is between those two types of content. There should be a hashtag declaring who’s payed for this and who hasn’t. I don’t know who annoys me most! The galleries paying for it, the PR people spoon feeding the content, the journalists who aren’t doing their own independent research and legwork — or the fact that it fucking works! Maybe I’m just annoyed because I can’t afford it. It’s nice when you get a little bit of organic press from doing the legwork yourself. The same way I have a spreadsheet of enquiries for sales, I have a spreadsheet for press — I’ll send things along if I think a writer might be interested, just to see if I can get them down. But as soon as I can afford it, I’ll be in line paying for it, 6 to 8 bits of press guaranteed, artist over the moon because their work is featured everywhere, sounds good to me.’

Well if it works, then it’s worth it, isn’t it? If it is a necessary evil to keep the gallery in business —

‘I don’t know how much it translates into sales. The way all these things interact, it’s hard to say. Like trends and what’s cool, I don’t think that effects sales, but maybe it does effect press. It’s obvious to spot what’s trending in London at the moment. It’s dark wood, metal, silver, black, latex. I’m not so interested in showing things that are trendy or cool, I try not to take too much notice of it. I want the gallery to reflect my personal taste and curatorial interests, I’m quite aware that it’s maybe not the coolest thing. I don’t know how much longevity there is in following what’s trendy. Going to other galleries you get a sense of what they’re trying to do, what you can expect and what’s in keeping with the rest of their programme. But again, I don’t know how that translates into sales.’

‘I’m finding it harder to predict what will sell. It is for the most part painting, it’s a commodity, it has market domination. If you want to make a bit of money, schedule a painting show every now and then. Like George Clooney, when he picks the films he works on, you know? He’ll do one for them (a massive fucking blockbuster), one for him (arthouse indie thing). I think most galleries do their programming along that format. I do look at what other galleries are doing and, it is obvious to me. Like, oh, they’re doing a selling show now. I don’t want to say that as a negative thing. You have to take that into consideration. A painting show, something else, a painting show, something else. Group shows too. Looking back those are the shows that’ve sold the best. Which makes sense, there are more works, more artists, they tend to be smaller, lower price points. You can’t go mad and do a load of experimental stuff and not have any paintings up for a whole year. But you also don’t always want to do everything just commercially, and get rid of the interesting experimental stuff. That doesn’t mean I’m any less excited about the paintings, but the programming also has to be a commercial decision. I want to continue operating — all the nice stuff we’ve been talking about like, helping artists careers, I can’t carry on doing that if the gallery fails…’

The gallerist trailed off as the thought settled in the air between them. Fra Angelico smiled. It seemed the gallerist had come to a kind of conclusion all on their own. All these things, all necessary to keep the gallery in business — after all, isn’t that the entire point? The bells pealed out, marking the hour. The gallerist’s phone buzzed in their pocket, a notification. Their shadow flinched, startled by how long they had lingered. They mumbled their apologies and thanked the art-priest for his time, hurrying out of the confessional booth before Fra Angelico could respond. My child, I haven’t forgiven you! No matter. But I haven’t thanked you for interrupting my solitude either.

Fra Angelico sat in the, now half-empty, confessional booth. The door still ajar from the gallerist’s abrupt exit. Golden afternoon light was bursting in from the stained glass window. Colour dancing in Fra Angelico’s eyes. Beautiful beautiful. With art, with its beauty, perhaps we are never truly alone.