Working As An Art Gallery Dealer
Do you need to work for a gallery to be an art dealer?
There's two kinds of art dealers - there are the primary art dealers who operate like galleries and there are secondary art dealers who primarily deal with the secondary market. They buy and sell art for clients but don't work with living artists, so you don't need to work for a gallery to be an art dealer.
Do you have a set number of artists that you represent?
Do you personally represent particular artists for the gallery?
I work with around seven artists: Mishka Portalacrague, Tatsuo Miyajima, Lia Fond, Tony Aspler. I mean more established artists, and then younger people work with with the younger artists.
Who do you sell artworks to?
We sell mostly to individual private collectors, or to museums, or to foundations.
Do artists have regular customers or collectors?
We have collectors who build up collections, and so they buy more than one work of art by one artist. More often than not, they have collections by different artists, yes.
How do you know what a buyer wants?
You tend to know what somebody's aesthetic is about from one work that they buy. You then point them in the direction of something that would be in the same vein but a different artist. There are different threads within the history of art. There's a more conceptual thread, there's a more sort of spiritual line, and you sort of follow a line that you see in terms of what their collection is about. You very soon get an understanding of the sensibility of their collection.
Do you earn commission on the artworks you sell?
Some galleries work on a commission basis system and some galleries just work on year end bonus, so it varies.
How much can a successful art dealer earn?
It really varies depending on what level of art they sell. Certain galleries that are dealing with super blue chip artists on a very high level can easily make over a couple hundred thousand pounds. But if you're working with younger artists, you'd be making a lot less than that. It just depends on the level of artist that you're working with, if they are more established or if they're younger.
How can you tell if an artist's work is going to sell?
You never know, actually. All you go for is something that's quality, and that you feel has a contribution to make to art history. This gallery tends to go for very important, historically significant artists. We feel that they add something to the debate of what's taking place historically so far, and that's always been our line.
How do you find new artists to represent?
It tends to be word of mouth, either from artists that we already work with or from artists that we know, or professors at the art colleges. It's very rare that we take on an artist just from somebody who sends in their slides. It tends to be word of mouth. You see them at the exhibitions, at the Biennales, or at the Documenta at Windsor.
Have you discovered someone who is now a big star?
How do you cope with a difficult artist?
It's not a matter of if they become difficult. All artists are difficult, but you just learn to work with them and realize that they need a lot of nurturing. Artists are difficult people. They're not easy by any long shot. They tend to be very demanding, and the ones who are ambitious are extremely demanding.
Do you install complicated works for buyers?
Often we do, yeah. That's part of the service that we do provide, installation. Yeah, installing complicated works for buyers is part of the service that we provide.
Does some art lend itself to private collection more than museums?
There are some works that lend itself to museums because of the nature of installation and the complexity of the actual work, as opposed to other smaller scale works that lend themselves to a more domestic setting. So it just depends. We sublet to museums - larger scale, installation complex works. And to private individuals, works that can hang on the wall and are a little easier to install.
What happens if the buyer doesn't like the work once they get it home?
That doesn't happen very often, but when it does happen we're happy to return it, to take the work back and find something better for them. The most important thing is to have a happy client.
Do artists come in and out of fashion?
In some sense they do, but we always continue to work with the artists that we believe in and know that there is going to be moments in their career where they are doing some experimenting and they may not be producing their best work, but if we believe in the artist we will follow them through all the way from the beginning to the end.
How do you recruit artists to your gallery?
We don't really recruit artists, but it tends to be word of mouth. They usually get recommended by other artists or by teachers or professors at various art colleges.
How do you sign an artist up once you have discovered them?
You go to the studio, you have conversations with them, you try to follow their work for at least a year or two to see what they're doing, and then you offer them an exhibition. Usually when we offer somebody an exhibition, we're usually embarking on taking on their career. There are some galleries that just do exhibitions of artists' work as a one off situation, but we don't work that way. You can work both ways. Some galleries just give artists exhibitions. We tend to give them an exhibition and then manage their career from start and hopefully nurture it all the way through.
Do artists have a say in who their work is sold to?
Very much so. Probably not so much when they're quite young, but the way the art world is at the moment, yes, very much so. It's our role and our job to try to place their work in the best collection, so we generally aim for museums as the first tier, second tier being foundations or collections that are of very high calibre, and finally, private individuals. In certain countries like America, people tend to prefer to sell to clients who are likely to give their collections to museums, which, in America is a big thing because they get large tax benefits. It doesn't seem to be so prevalent in Britain.
