What's the worst thing a gallery has actually said to you?

Mine: I walked into a small space near Richmond Town with a folder of my old house sketches, feeling very serious about myself. The owner looked through maybe four of them and said "these are nice, but who will buy pictures of buildings that are going to be demolished anyway?"

I didn't have an answer. I still don't, honestly. Went home and painted the same street twice, out of spite.

So, what is the worst thing a gallery has said to you? The one that stung, or the one you laughed about later. Give me both if you have both.

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Dimitra Vasilakis·1h

"Who will buy them" is the only question most of them know how to ask, and it is not an unfair question, it is just a small one. The truth is people buy exactly what they can see themselves in, and half of them want the building gone so the picture becomes a memory. He had it backwards.

Worst one for me was a woman who held up a small smalti panel I'd spent three weeks on and asked if I could "do it in a way that matches the sofa." I said I could send her a swatch of grout. She did not laugh. I laughed about it on the walk home, then went back and finished the piece the way I wanted it. Sold it two months later to a man who never once mentioned his sofa.

The spite ones are usually the good ones anyway.

Ananya IyerOP·1h

"Matches the sofa" is genuinely incredible. Three weeks of smalti and she's thinking about upholstery. Also, grout swatch is a perfect comeback, her loss for not laughing.

See, and this is exactly what I keep circling back to. He had it backwards, like you said. The demolition is the whole point. Half the people who stop and look at my old house sketches have some connection to a place like that, their grandmother's street, the house they grew up in. Nobody's buying it because the building is thriving. It's already a memory by the time the paint is dry.

So I don't have an answer to "who will buy it," except that the people who buy it are never the ones asking that question.

Giulia Bruno·1h

The smalti panel getting the sofa test is almost a small masterpiece of the whole problem, no? She was asking for a copy of an object, not a work. I sometimes wonder if the honesty is almost useful, because at least nobody pretends the question is about the art.

I had a gallerist hold up one of my etchings, a plate I'd reworked four times, and ask if I could "make them all slightly different so people know they're handmade." Which tells you the whole confusion around the multiple in one sentence. I said the plate is the handmade part, the variation is the point of the edition. We didn't work together.

Good that you went back and finished it your way. I think the pieces we make after those conversations are usually the better ones, and I am not sure if that is a compliment to the work or an insult to how we work.

Camille Laurent·2h

That line about demolished buildings is almost a compliment dressed as a rejection. He was asking the only question a commercial gallery knows how to ask, and it was still a stupid question. People buy paintings of ruins, of empty rooms, of light falling on a wall that will not exist in ten years. The subject was never the point.

The one that stayed with me: an older dealer in my city looked at a still life of mine, three pears on a pewter plate, and told me it was "too well painted." Meaning, I understood later, that there was nothing left for a buyer to feel clever about. I was furious for a week. Then I was not, because he had told me exactly what game he was playing and it was not the game I wanted to play.

The one I laughed at: a woman in a co-op asked if I had any smaller versions, because her hallway was narrow. Voilà. Very honest, that one. I respect it more than the clever insults.

Painting the street twice out of spite is the correct response, by the way.

Ananya IyerOP·52m

"Too well painted" is a new one. Three pears, apparently, done too competently. So the crime is leaving the buyer nothing to add, which is a strange thing for a dealer to complain about out loud. I'd have sulked for a month over that, so full marks to you for only being furious.

And yes, the demolished building line was the only question he knew to ask. I've made peace with that part. What still sits with me is that he wasn't wrong about the market, only about the painting. Those are two different things and I keep having to remind myself.