Direct Has a Ceiling

At The Studio table : Production artist vs fine artist

by Rachael Lambert

There is a constant question I get asked and maybe I’m one of the few people positioned to actually answer it, having sat on both sides of this for almost two decades. It always starts the same way:

“Artists don’t need galleries that take 50%, not when they can engage institutions, advisors, and curators that take 10/20%, make relationships directly with collectors. It’s more in person.”

My response is always the same: that is not true. Direct has a ceiling.

What I mean by that: I don’t think going direct fails. I think most artists going direct don’t know which economic model they’re running, what it does and doesn’t compound into, or what they’re trading away to run it. That’s the argument in everything that follows. Not that one path is wrong. That almost nobody names the trade they’re making until they’re a decade into it.

Before we get into the argument, we need a little history. You can’t understand the ceiling without understanding where this model came from.