I like Alan (http://www.mynall.co.uk), he knows what he’s doing, and he does it to the best of his skill … which is far better, certainly in terms of discernable talent, than my own painterly skills. I often catch myself wishing I could paint like Alan, and then I have to remind myself that if I could paint like Alan, I might never have moved on to any of the other interesting things I do, like multi-artform improvisation, ritual, psychology and all the rest.
Alan just had an exhibition at the The Meller Merceux Gallery in Witney. He doesn’t get offered exhibitions that often, and given he relies on his art for nearly all his income, I thought I might help publicise it.
The gallery is one of those that likes to invest in their artists. One of their investments is to reframe an artist’s paintings in their “standard” frames – gives a more uniform look, and the punters apparently prefer that. But it’s expensive, so they ask for half the framing costs from the artist. Alan squirmed a little – he’s already spent a lot on frames – but paid up. Later it turned out that what Alan had paid was half the retail framing cost, which, surely by chance, was the same as the wholesale cost that the gallery paid. Not much investment there, then.
The Private View was a bit of a disappointment too: “Yes, of course you can invite anyone you like to come and view the exibition during gallery opening hours … no, we don’t mail out to any kind of address list, people just visit at their convenience”. Oh.
Alan went along on the opening morning to check everything was OK. His pictures were sharing the space with another artist. “That’s interesting, the artist has ripped his canvas, why did he do that?” … “Ah, that was damage in transit from the framer’s” … Hang on a minute … they aren’t exhibiting damaged paintings “as new” are they? Oh yes, they are. And then Alan finds a gurt big scratch across one of his skies.
Any chance the gallery could make a claim on their insurance and pay for the repair of the damage? “No, I’m sorry, that’s not gallery policy”.
Alan has decided not to sue. He’s not convinced a magistrate would value his time in repairing the painting at a level that would be worth the hassle. And he’s not the kind of man that relishes conflict and difficulty. So he just took the paintings home to avoid further damage.
Lucky the gallery hadn’t bothered with any kind of contract.
It’s tough enough being an artist without people like this. Why are we expected [or even expect ourselves] to put up with this kind of stuff, smile sweetly, and not say anything negative? This is s**t, these people are s***s, and it’s not OK.
