Loyalty on the Ropes

When poverty walks in the door, they say, love flies out the window. Apparently, when prosperity walks in the door, however, loyalty can fly out that same window.

As an art dealer, I can't help but feel for my colleagues experiencing the frenzy of defections by their big-name artists in these heady days of art market madness. The rumors about who's moving where are reaching a fevered pitch in Chelsea, and a strange sense that, as an artist, if you're not moving "up the food chain" (pooly defined as that may be), you're in danger of becoming irreverent, is spreading like a highly contagious virus. First was John Currin, then Tom Friedman (both to Gagosian), and now there's a seemingly frenzied rush out the doors of galleries that, in my eyes, are quite successful and work very hard for their artists. The Times reports today:

Defections seem to be contagious in Chelsea these days. Long-settled artists are suddenly playing the field, ditching their dealers in favor of galleries with bigger spaces, better locations, stronger connections to museums and collectors and — perhaps most important — a star-studded roster of artists.

"It's beginning to feel like the good old 80's, no?" said Friedrich Petzel, who recently lost Richard Phillips to Gagosian. Not since then has so much Wall Street money flowed steadily into the art market, prompting artists to scamper from gallery to gallery in pursuit of riches and fame.

The difference today, many dealers say, is that it's the successful artists — whose work commands dizzying sums— who are defecting. "Artists used to leave because they weren't doing well enough," said Helene Winer, a co-owner of Metro Pictures. "Now they're leaving because they're so successful. They're vulnerable to offers from other dealers. We have to adjust if we want to keep them."

In the last year Chris Ofili left Gavin Brown, Sue Williams dumped 303 Gallery, and Lisa Yuskavage bid goodbye to Marianne Boesky, all for David Zwirner's rapidly expanding gallery in Chelsea. And in one of the most talked-about moves of the spring, the artist Paul McCarthy severed a 14-year relationship with Luhring Augustine in favor of Hauser & Wirth of London and Zurich. (News of Mr. McCarthy's defection arrived in the form of a brief letter via Federal Express, Lawrence Luhring said in an interview.)

And at a party recently, some well-informed insiders noted a few other high-profile defections they're heard were underway. I won't say who just yet, but, if true, it suggests that it's not only established galleries or their well-settled artists who are being poached by the big fish.

We, like many galleries, don't have contracts with our artists. We rely on mutual respect and a demonstrable effort on their behalf to keep our artists happy with our relationship. But we're not naive. We tell our artists that if a bigger gallery comes calling and they feel it's an important change for them to do what they feel is best. We advise them to consider it carefully and to understand we'll wish them well if they go but we can't leave their slot open if that move turns out not to be what they thought it would be.

Now, I've been in the biz long enough, and have enough artists as friends, to know that very few artists are perfectly thrilled with every aspect of their gallery. Most like to bitch to their friends (and dealers do the same, mind you), but that's simply the nature of human relationships. There are, however, better ways of dealing with contentions than we're seeing in some of these examples (emails letting their gallery know they're finished? FedEx'd letters? [what ever happened to artists with balls?] Why not a text message, for God's sake?).

I've had the honor of having an artist respect us enough to explain what factors about the relationship were making them think about switching galleries...giving us an opportunity to address those issues. (Like any gallery, if we don't know what's wrong, we can't fix it.) I have immense respect for that artist for being mature enough to approach the situation in that manner. I wish others were as thoughtful. And, of course, there's the other side to this story: galleries dropping artists. I've done that well, and I've done it shamefully poorly. Believe me, you'll always sleep better having done it well.

Now it's no secret that many well-established galleries are looking for more inventory. They sell out at art fairs and sell out their exhibitions, and a few have been known to have to simply skip an art fair because they couldn't come up with enough work to make it worth while. I'm sure this drives artists seeking representation absolutely nuts, but the inventory those galleries are seeking is by instantly sellable "names," not newbies (they leave the hard work of building reputations to the galleries they poach from). What may be less well known, or remembered, actually, is that when the corrections come (and they will), even established galleries that have overextended their stables will need to trim back. Artists who jumped while the jumping was good may find themselves unrepresented. If enough artists find themselves in that position, even the "names" may go wanting for any space that will exhibit their work.

All of which is another way to say artists should consider carefully (with an eye on the long term) why they want to move. If a gallery is truly holding them back, that's one thing. But if it's just more quick cash, it might be a big mistake, careerwise. Not to mention soulwise. Some of these artists are leaving after more than a decade of service and loyalty from their gallery, one...notoriously...during a major retrospective at a major museum that their former gallery had every right to take a good deal of credit for. But, I guess, that's how this game is played, and if you can't stand the heat....

The thing for me, and many other dealers I know, is that I have no delusions about getting filthy rich from this venture. I opened a gallery because I love art and love the dialog. So it's particularly annoying when folks argue that there's no need to take disloyalty personally...the "it's just business" excuse. For me it's deeply personal. That doesn't mean an artist shouldn't move on if unhappy. But I hope it would mean they'd not do so via email.