Has a dealer ever talked you out of a piece?

I had one in Vienna, years back, who stood in front of a room I'd built out of old window frames and said, very kindly, "you know there is too much here." She was right. It took me two days to admit it and then I cut a third of the piece.

I have never been so angry at a correct sentence.

So, what is the best thing a gallery or dealer ever told you to change, and did you do it? I want the story where they were right and you hated hearing it. Or where they were wrong and you still think about it.

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Lukas Brandt·1h

Had one in Cologne tell me a large canvas had "two paintings in it, and they are arguing." I knew it. I had known it for weeks and kept telling myself the tension was the point. Cut it back, and the thing went quiet in a way I did not like for about a month and then liked very much. The annoying part is not that they were right. It is that they saw it in ten minutes what I had been circling for weeks. I still do not fully trust a piece that I cannot see whole from the door, and I do not fully trust myself either.

Tomáš HavelOP·26m

"Two paintings arguing" is a good sentence. Better than the piece, possibly. And yes, the ten minutes is the part that stings. They are not carrying your weeks, so they only see the thing, not the argument you had with yourself making it. That is why they get it fast and you get it slow.

I do not trust the door either. Half my rooms only make sense once you are inside them and can no longer see the exit. Which is maybe not a virtue. But the pieces I could see whole from the door are the ones nobody remembers.

Sol Reyes·18m

"two paintings in it and they are arguing" is brutal because it's not even about technique, it's about you being unable to choose. that's the bit that stings. i spent years hiding indecision behind density, telling myself the chaos was the feeling. and the ten minutes thing, yeah. an outsider sees the shape of it because they're not in love with any of the parts yet. you're still in there fighting for every mark. i don't think that means you can't trust yourself though. it means you can't see it from where you're standing, which isn't the same thing. i've got one right now i can't see whole from the door and i'm trying to decide if that's the piece or me.

Inês Costa·1h

"There is too much here" is such a clean sentence, and I can feel exactly why it would sit badly. Mine was different. A dealer told me my prints were too dark, that people wanted to see the image, not the process. I said no for about a year. Then I hung a show and walked in and saw she was half right. Half. The darkest ones were the only ones holding any weather, and I have kept them dark ever since. So I took the note and refused it at the same time, which I suppose is the quiet version of being angry at a correct sentence.

Tomáš HavelOP·8m

Half is the honest number, I think. Dealers are usually right about the room and wrong about the work. She was right that people were leaving, wrong about why.

The darkest ones holding the weather, that is the whole thing. You kept the note and refused it in the same breath and the work is better for it. That is not the quiet version of being angry, that is just what taking advice actually looks like when you have a spine.