An Appreciation

Gallery owners returned from their summer vacations this year to a stark new reality about the market, their livelihoods and that of their artists, their cash flow, and all those plans they had made, both professional and personal. So too had much of the world, I realize. However, for an industry that relies on consumer confidence much more than non-luxury industries do, for an industry that had grown to unprecedented heights based on a cultural embrace of the most conspicuous of consumption, this seemingly overnight national thriftiness was indeed a rude awakening.

Observers of the industry have predicted dire outcomes for a large percentage of art galleries, and indeed over the past few months the economy has claimed some truly stellar spaces, but I wanted to take just a moment to note how very impressed I've been with both the resilience and the resourcefulness of most of the art dealers I know in handling the economic crisis. In a world in which behemoth corporations like Lehman Brothers, Circuit City, and Washington Mutual have gone belly up, in a city in which restaurants and clothing stores and other vendors of things people need to survive are closing left and right, in a world in which everyone is re-evaluating what their true needs vs. wants are, the surprising story isn't how many art dealers have decided to pursue other interests, but rather how many are fighting tooth and nail to stay open.

More than that, as countless out-of-town collectors who visit New York galleries every few months or so, as well as collectors who live here, have told me recently, New York galleries are putting on fantastic exhibitions this season. Across the board, from Williamsburg, to the Lower East Side, to Chelsea and Uptown, the galleries and their artists are bringing their A-Game to the public. It's a great time to go gallery hopping (a past-time that's free, mind you), and because that's corresponding with the economic downturn, I've had to wonder why that's the case. Perhaps it's a sense among those involved that it's important to put on your best show. Perhaps this sense of higher quality is simply a natural result of years of plenty reaching their fruition. Whatever the reason, though, I tip my hat to those artists and dealers who continue to forge forward and hang tough. It is not easy, I can tell you.