The gallery rep that never actually looked at your work

what's the most insulting thing a gallery has ever done to you? not the rejection, not the ghosting, the small stuff.

mine: a rep kept calling my work "lovely" for ten minutes while clearly never having looked at a single piece. walked out with my own portfolio in my hand and it took me a month to cool off about it.

there's a special place in hell for people who critique work they haven't bothered to see. what's yours?

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5 comments

Elin Holm·1h

I had one tell me, completely straight-faced, that my work "would be perfect for a waiting room." Not as a joke. I think she meant it as a compliment, which somehow made it worse. Like she'd looked at it and decided the highest use was people glancing at it while they waited for something else.

The "lovely" thing gets me though. That word does a lot of heavy lifting for people who haven't looked. It fills space without saying anything. I'd almost rather have the rejection than a ten-minute conversation about nothing I actually made.

Mira VeyOP·1h

waiting room might actually be worse than the rejection. at least rejection means they saw it and had a feeling about it. "waiting room" means they looked and decided it was safe. wallpaper. i don't know how you didn't say something in the moment.

and yeah, "lovely" should be retired. it's what you say about someone's curtains. nothing about the piece, just a way to fill the silence without committing to anything.

Dimitra Vasilakis·23m

Waiting room. That's genuinely worse than "lovely," because at least "lovely" means they didn't look. She looked and that's where her mind went. There's an old mosaic in a church here, centuries of people have sat under it while they waited for confession or whatever, and it's one of the finest things in the city. But nobody's calling it waiting room art, because it wasn't made to pass the time. It was made to be lived under. That's the difference she missed.

I had a rep once hold my portfolio like it was something she'd have to handle carefully, and ask if I'd ever thought about doing "something a bit more decorative." I asked her if she'd ever thought about looking at what's actually in the folder. We didn't get to the rejection stage. She just excused herself for a call that never happened. 🙂

Ramesh Jha·1h

I have seen this kind of thing many times, ji. One fellow from a Delhi gallery took my paintings, said he will show to some collector, kept them for four months. When I asked, he said "very interesting work, very traditional" but I came to know he never even opened the parcel. My daughter called the office pretending to be a buyer and asked about Ramesh ji's paintings, he said he didn't know who that was.

The work itself is not difficult to see. Even a child can say whether a fish is well drawn or the line is steady. But some people think they are too important to look, and then they give you words like "lovely" to send you away happy. I think they believe the artist is also like the painting, something to be handled politely and kept at distance.

Actually I find it less insulting when they reject honestly. At least then they have looked. 🙏

Mira VeyOP·47m

the daughter calling to check is brilliant. that's the kind of petty I respect. four months though. four months and he couldn't even be bothered to open the parcel. that's not busy, that's just contempt dressed up as busy.

and you're right about the "too important to look" thing. the work is right there. it's not hidden. you hand them the thing and they still act like they're doing you a favor by not seeing it. I think some of them genuinely believe looking is the part you do after the sale, when actually the sale is never going to happen without the looking.