Snooty art dealers
February 20 2012
Here's a classic example of art dealer pomposity, and the ability of the trade to shoot itself in the foot:
Daniel Radcliffe (or Mr H. Potter as he's otherwise known) recently revealed his art collecting tastes [...] but not even Radcliffe, one of the most famous faces on earth, can win over the surliest art dealers at one of the world's biggest fairs. "I went to Frieze Art Fair and saw a painting by Jim Hodges. The guy said,'No, we're waiting for a more prestigious collector to take that.' I was like, thanks, thanks a lot," says the miffed movie star in Time Out.
Cristina Ruiz of The Art Newspaper had a similarly dispiriting experience of the art trade during her penultimate visit to Gagosian in New York:
It’s a good thing I didn’t start the spot tour in New York because, if I had, I probably would have given up after the first gallery. Why is it that Gagosian staff here, in what must surely be the three most commercially successful galleries in the international franchise, are always so caustic? Even when they’re polite and (reluctantly) helpful, they can’t be bothered to look at you for longer than three seconds so that all conversations take place while they’re staring at their computers... What on earth are they doing that is so important? Are they in the middle of a multi-million dollar sale to Steve Cohen? It makes you want to bang your head against the counter. I am reminded of a conversation I had a few years ago with one of Bill Gates’s art buyers. He had arrived at a Gagosian gallery in New York unannounced. Nobody knew who he was when he walked through the door. He was so put off by the snottiness of the staff that he left the gallery and never returned.
In the trade, we have the phrase 'threshold resistance'; the fear that customers feel before they even come through the door, because they've had one too many Gagosian-like experiences. So instead of pressing the dreaded buzzer (which is, alas, often necessitated by the insurance company), they walk away. In my view it is one of the biggest problems facing dealers, and one which, here at Philip Mould, we work hard to overcome. But sadly, some galleries never learn, and give the rest of us a bad name.
