- jon from side street : )

Certainly not artists of any substance.

The artist remains the same. It’s the dealer who has to scramble. Artists have to make art before dealers can begin to put food on their table - a fact that lays bare the mercantilism of the gallerist, and the prostitution of many artists.

An economic downturn might be just what we need to wash away the hundreds of hacks who ticked the “art” box on their college application simply because it seemed so far removed from “business.”

Perhaps a double major was in order.

If we are to expect bold gallerists to step up and save the not-yet-household name artists from the shallow consumers who are only concerned with how much the artist has sold, to whom, and where the work currently hangs… then that galleries needs to stop relying on these marketing tools as their stock in trade!

Is this a realistic suggestion? Can we expect inherently commercial enterprises (save those whose business model is, “I’m an old rich guy, I have a gallery so I can have sex with young women”), to operate as altruistic enterprises? To do so would be financial suicide.

So perhaps we should stop waiting for the apple tree to produce an orange. Perhaps we need to look beyond galleries and museums as wet nurses to talent. Perhaps it’s time we found a third way.