The gallery red flags you see now that you didn't then
I've had galleries that took 40 percent and did nothing, and one that took almost nothing and did everything. It took me years to tell the difference before signing. Now I can smell a bad one from the first email.
What's the thing you look back on and think, I should've known right then? For me it was a gallerist who kept calling my work "pieces" and never once asked what the room felt like. Should've walked. What was yours?
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The "pieces" thing is real. I had one who kept talking about "investment potential" and "collector appeal" and never once mentioned the actual work, what it was trying to say, what I was even trying to do. That should've been it right there. You can't sell something you don't understand, and you definitely can't represent an artist you don't care about.
The one I really kick myself for: a gallerist who wanted to "clean up" my work. Not in those words, but constantly nudging me toward "a more polished presentation." I was young and hungry and I let it happen because I wanted the wall space. Looking back I should've known immediately that we wanted completely different things out of my paintings. She wanted sellable. I wanted true. Those are opposite directions.
The bad ones always show you who they are early. You just have to trust the first gut punch instead of talking yourself out of it because you want it to work.