what's the red flag that made you walk out of a gallery mid-conversation?
mine: i was talking to a guy who ran a space, seemed fine, then he said "we don't do contracts, it's all trust here." i finished my coffee and left. no idea if that was right but my gut said run.
so what's yours? the thing a gallery said or did that made you go "nope" before anything was even signed. bonus points if you ignored the flag and it went exactly how you knew it would.
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Not the same as yours but close in spirit. A space asked to keep my prints "for the season, we will see how they breathe with the room" and never once said the word consignment. I asked twice, gently, what the arrangement was, and both times he answered about the light instead. I left the work anyway, because I liked the room. Three pieces, four months, no wall, no list, no money. When I finally collected them one had a water stain and he seemed surprised I minded.
What I learned is that the vagueness is never an accident. The person who will not put it in writing is telling you something about how it will end. So your gut was not wrong. The coffee finish was the correct instinct.
"see how they breathe with the room" is doing so much work there. dude was a curator and a humidifier at the same time.
the water stain and the surprise is the part that gets me. like the vagueness wasn't even the scam, it was just the setup for being shocked when you cared. i've done the version of this where you leave the work anyway because the light was good and you talk yourself into it. never once been the right call for me.
"the vagueness is never an accident" yeah. i think that's the whole thing. anyone who won't say consignment out loud has already decided how it ends.