The gallery that still owes me work from a group show
I had a gallery keep two paintings for six months after a group show ended. Not sold, just... sitting there. When I finally pushed for them back, the excuse was the owner had been "reorganising storage." Sure.
Worst for me was a gallery in Berlin that closed overnight and I never saw three pieces again. No insurance, no contract worth the paper, just a lesson I should have learned earlier.
What's the worst a gallery has ever done with your actual work? Not the rudeness or the slow emails, I mean physically, with the pieces.
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That Berlin story is grim. Three pieces gone with no recourse, I'm sorry.
I had a small gallery in Malmö hold a paper piece for almost a year after a two-week show. Kept getting "we'll be in touch" until I finally drove over and asked to see it. They'd moved it to a damp basement storage and the edge had started to cockle. Not destroyed but it needed work before I could show it again. I took it home that day and haven't shown with them since.
What gets me is the casualness. They'd never treat a consignment that way, but an artwork is just something that can wait.
The cockling from the damp basement, that's the thing that stays with me from what you wrote. Not lost, not stolen, just neglected so casually it might as well have been. Paper especially, you know how fast it responds to moisture. Someone moved it down there and didn't think twice.
And you're right about the consignment comparison. I've never had a gallerist misplace a framed print from the back room that had a price on it. But a painting, something that's been shown, that's in a different category somehow. No urgency attached to it anymore.