Nature - Spotting the Art Dealer
Hello all, and welcome to a New Year.
Too many gin fizzes and jolly dancing has left me looking for a quieter life and so a bit of nature searching beckons. You know, avoiding the city lights for a few weeks could be good for the soul (and the liver).
And where better to start than looking at one of the rarest and strangest creatures on the planet......the art dealer........
The Nature Column
The Supercilious Lesser Spotted Art Dealer
I once closed my eyes so tight that the blood vessels in my neck pulsated and I went dizzy due to the effort involved.
And what for.......
I WANT TO SEE AN ART DEALER
Oh you can laugh but have you seen them? So powerful, so knowledgeable and so attractive to the media and us that they often hide from us just to toy with our desperate need to spot one.
And so I give the guide on this most difficult of creatures to understand.
SHRINKING HABITATION
The connected world has put all of your art online. Like a bulldozer in a rainforest we don’t have to go to a gallery to view old masters or new fashions, we just sit at home in slippers and browse through all aspects of art. Websites of artists, sculptors, graphic designers, installation artists (?) and every gallery you have and haven’t heard of plus museums da di da. So how will you spot one of these exotic beasts?
EVOLUTION
The Art Dealer has used the evolutionary process to its advantage. First it realized that if it had a more ostentatious nesting area it could attract its favoured dietary choice, namely people with a trust fund or a designer watch and a sports star friend.
Look around all major cities and you’ll see these nesting boxes with names such as White and Cube and Gagosian and Gallery.
But evolution brings false dawns and a bigger and better plumage was required to really attract the lemmings to the party and lo and behold.......the Art Fair arrived.
The WILDLIFE RESERVE
“I was there you know”.
Ah, the statement of youthful exuberance given with a puffed out chest and a voice slightly louder than a Take That concert as he takes on a serious frown and goes on to describe Frieze number 1 (and 2 and 3 and 4).
But those days of being seen are no more. These Grande dames of the pantomime Art Fairs are no longer about artists......oh no they aren’t!!
Art dealers can’t rely on you coming to their galleries anymore. So they bring their galleries to you.
And so you travel to these hallowed grounds where you hope to see a collection of dealers in their very own wildlife reserve and you sit and you watch and you wait.
THE MATING CEREMONY
If you look carefully you can spot a dealer with a little practice.
The males are quite simple looking, normally as a result of inheriting too much money. They look sideways a lot, almost hoping that you’ll approach because they want to be domesticated but aren’t sure if you are of the right stature to be with them.
The females are a lot stronger and deadly. They usually come with a little black cocktail dress or a pvc coat and killer nails and phone that is waved about threatening violence if you get too close.
Both the mail and the female of the species will hover around the fair and as in days gone past child bearing hips may have been attractive now it is the column inches and the size of house / mansion that is attractive.
If you appear to be a prospect than you will be circled and quiet conversation will begin to ascertain the ability to provide networking opportunities.
Do not think for a moment that the art is important at this time, it is not.
What is important that you can partake of the foreplay of discussing art...... talk about the serra exhibition in New York and London and you can snuggle up but talk Hirst and all you’ll remember is the slap of PVC as it slaps you and vanishes from whence it came.
But make it to the cosy second base and the real reason for a dealers existence comes into place.
Picture it, champagne, hushed conversations and furtive glances into each other’s eyes and then the Art Dealer will glance furtively about, take a swallow and look at you and mouth the words.....I was just last week talking to Tom Cruise / Jay Z / Sandra Bullock and then it is the moment of truth.
THE HUNTER OR THE HUNTED
This is it, the moment you dreamt of, can you catch a dealer.
If you can reply “Well I just spoke to Tom Cruise / Jay Z / Sandra Bullock this morning’ then you have it. The little noose tightens around the neck and the dealer is caught.
If you can’t reply with ‘A’ list celebrities then the hook has slipped and you are left floundering with no way back.
You see, art dealers don’t need the money. They have plenty and if an artwork of standing is for sale they have a little club anyway. So new and upcoming artists then you cry? Yeah right.
Art fairs bring in millions of dollars in sales but it isn’t important to the Art Dealer, he is in it for the contacts and the prestige that can bring him.
And now you have the chance to see the real side of the Art Dealer. They are a group breed but they rarely protect their own (maybe the inflated prices, but not their own).
You have passed the mating game and now the other dealers smell column inches and favourable publicity and they circle like buzzards. Voices are now a little louder as each uses its sirens call to entice you into their address book.
They don’t mix well, the plumage and testosterone in the males is almost tangible and the females begin to hiss and act more like cuckoos ready to jump into another’s nest if the egg is enticing enough.
And then it is done.
The marking of the dealer and it’s hypnotic qualities will permeate into you and after time you will be interested in the celebrities more than the art.
And even if you fail you fail, because you want to be a celebrity even if it is for just one day
And so it is my strong belief that if you visit an art fair to see many artists and many works in situ and not just on a screen then you have a fantastic time but know something.
Like the search for extra-terrestrial life, if you are hoping to engage with an Art Dealer the odds say they are there but I doubt they’ll pick up your signal.













