In order to fund my writing, teaching and amateur art making habits, I am part of a peculiar breed of dealer-to-dealer dealers and we are an idiosyncratic bunch at that. What that actually entails is the buying and selling of art to other like-minded traders thereby avoiding the time-consuming and hapless job of selling to end users, i.e., collectors—whatever that term has come to signify. I relate the capriciousness of some to a punter who walks into a supermarket, bargains down the price of a quart of milk, doesn't pay for eight months then proceeds to return it because it went rancid. Or the market dropped or the couch changed. That should make me some more friends.
Back to my colorful cohorts in the art trade: there is the dandy (young) secondary market Turk who fancies himself the "Jeff Koons" of dealers who is such an avid gambler he knocked my socks off recently when I had to pay the bill for a very expensive dinner after he correctly guessed the designer of a pair I had stolen from my kids. Then there is the statuesque stallion posing mega deals prone to negotiating in a dressing gown on FaceTime, I guess in an effort to get a leg up on the competition.
The backstabbing and mean-spirited natter, usually intended to throw a wrench into another's deal, can resemble the cruelest of schoolyard brawls. There was one in-and-outer (professional art flipper) who, in order to get his hands on a Christian Rosa when that necessitated finesse (which it doesn't any longer), swore on his unborn child that it was for keeps. Surprise, surprise, the work was pawned off in the next Phillips day sale, making a hefty profit for the then newborn who became the world's youngest speculator in the process.
It didn't end as well for the hapless dealer who sold the work, which so infuriated the artist when the newly painted painting landed in auction, that he had to pay Rosa a hefty penalty related to the high price the work fetched at auction to save face. Even more ludicrous was the father of the baby-dealer who himself got pissed off at yet another dealer who did the same thing with a Nate Lowman painting, landing him in hot water with Massimo de Carlo. Meow.
Are you with me? I'm getting confused myself. Welcome to the transmogrified art world where such antics have become the norm.
If cocaine or caviar cost $5.99 an ounce, I doubt people would clamor in quite the way they did and still seem to (in the UK anyway). The same might be said for Jonas Wood, whose paintings have leapfrogged to more than $600K in about six minutes. As the creed of greed more and more consumes the art market one dealer was thwarted when a collector, aka a spec-u-lector, refused to honor an invoice that had been agreed and paid for due to the marked market uptick which necessitated a threatening lawyer to free up the painting. I ran away from big business to art, which became bigger business still.
And it seemed to go down from there. "Jeff Koons" (the dealer), recommended a "friend," a word with a wholly other connotation when utilized in the context of art, for his old job at a mega-gallery chain, only to be badmouthed by the new recruit when he referred to himself as the honest version of the very person that had just helped land him the job. Art dealer as cat and cat-scratching post.
Alas, we are in a new (art) world order where even Krispy Kreme is marketing donuts in limited editions—call it trickle down art-o-nomics. After all the chaos and market mayhem I'm still excited and optimistic though forging ahead with trepidation. Art is a slow burning organic process for the long term, for art lovers. And a maxim for us all: Only someone who sells at a loss loses. Sellers beware.
Die ursprüngliche Fassung dieses Artikels erschien zuerst auf Artnet.com