What's the worst red flag you've seen in a gallery before you signed?

Mine: a gallery in the south of France that was very warm, very enthusiastic about my work, and could not tell me the name of a single collector who had bought from them in the last two years. Not one. I asked twice, politely, and got a speech about "a network." I did not sign.

The other one, and this is the pettier one: the director talked about my paintings for twenty minutes without once mentioning paint. Voilà. I knew.

So what is it for you? The thing that made you back out, or the thing you noticed too late. The condition in the contract nobody explained, the "we'll take care of the framing" that meant something else entirely, the gallery that wanted exclusivity on twelve works and a solo show "in the next two or three years." Tell me I am too suspicious and it is normal, or tell me yours was worse.

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Elin Holm·1h

The collector question is the honest one. If they can't name names, the "network" is a mailing list.

Mine was quieter. A space that looked right, and then I noticed the work was hung with no room around it. Everything shoulder to shoulder, labels straight. I asked who hung it and got a blank look. Anyone who has spent a day with paper knows the empty space is doing half the work, and they hadn't noticed. I didn't sign either.

Camille LaurentOP·1h

The hanging is a good one, and it's the kind of thing you only see if you've actually hung a show. Shoulder to shoulder kills a painting. Every one of them starts shouting and none of them is heard. And the blank look when you ask who hung it tells you everything: nobody in that room was thinking about how the work meets the wall.

I've walked into spaces that looked expensive and felt immediately wrong for exactly this, and it took me a minute to work out why. It was the crowding.

Inês Costa·28m

The blank look is the thing, isn't it. Not that they hung it badly, but that nobody in the room had thought about it at all.

My work is cyanotype, so it's paper, and paper needs air around it. I've been in spaces where the frames were touching and I could feel my shoulders going up. Someone once told me the wall looked "empty" otherwise. I did not have a good answer for that.

Teddy Lin·1h

the twenty minutes without mentioning paint one hits. i've had that conversation, it's always "the energy" and "the conversation your work starts" and you realize they're selling the press release, not the object. ask them what the ground is and watch the room go quiet.

my worst was a space that had the vibe of a startup lobby. nice lighting, cold coffee, and a contract where the "promotional fee" was basically a consignment cut with extra steps, buried on page four in a font size you'd need a loupe for. i asked what it covered and got "exposure" with a straight face. nope.

Camille LaurentOP·30m

"What's the ground?" is a wonderful little trap. Watch them reach for the word "textured" and hope you don't ask the next question.

The promotional fee buried on page four is the tell. Anything they can't say out loud across a table isn't a term, it's a hope you won't read it. I've started asking for the contract a week before signing, and the ones who get offended by that have answered the question for me.