Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Bad Things Artists do to Galleries

This actually happened to one of our neighbors in Georgetown:

One of the galleries there (at one time there were eight galleries in Canal Square - soon they will be down to four) had given a show to a local (at the time "hot" artist) who was a painter (I say "was" because I haven't heard of the dude in years).

The artist was supposed to deliver and help hang all the paintings on a Wednesday, in order to be ready for the Georgetown third Friday openings. He did show up on Wednesday with about 50% of the work, and brought some more (freshly finished) on Thursday and to the gallerist's horror, even brought some more on Friday, and even as the show was opening at 6PM, was adding the last painting touches to several of the works.

Needless to say, several of the oils were actually wet.

On opening night, it was crowded (let us not forget that this was a very "hot" painter) and someone apparently rubbed against one of the paintings and smeared some of the oil paint.

Now the gallerist is faced with a very irate person, demanding that his suit be cleaned (it eventually had to be replaced) and with a furious artist, demanding that the gallery pay him in full for the damaged painting.

If I am to believe the gallerist, the case actually went to court, where the judge threw it out.

More bad things that (a) galleries do to artists or (b) artists do to galleries or (c) galleries do to collectors here, and here and here.

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