How Artists Are Bypassing Their Dealers and Selling Directly to Collectors
“If you can buy it off of our website for cheaper, then why would you buy it from a gallery?” said Citarella. “We wanted to open up the question of price-shopping for an artwork like you would any other good.” It’s worth noting that Holden, Hendry, Citarella, and Troemel have all worked with dealers, and two out of the four still have gallery representation, a fact that reflects dealers’ continued importance in the art ecosystem. But even dealers have been questioning their own relevance in an age when smaller galleries struggle to survive. London- based art dealer Marine Tanguy broke from the gallery model in 2015, when she started an eponymous agency to support artists and their projects outside of brick-and- mortar gallery spaces ; she takes a 30 percent cut, less than the typical dealer ’s 50 percent. After managing London’s Outsiders Gallery for over a year and then helping to open Los Angeles ’s De Re Gallery, Tanguy decided escalating rents and the merry-go-round of art fair...