Our lives are busy and time is rare. There certainly will be no time to google a list of terms after a random dinner chat about the art market.
TheArtGorgeous provides you with a encyclopedia of art world phrases that you will be confronted with sooner or later and tell you the truth about what their real meaning is:
That is an auction house no-brainer often used for special sales.
Either a work honestly is part of an important collection, which makes you obviously call the owner by name (We all eagerly await e.g. the Rockefeller sales) or it is not, which then brings us to the point where there is no more need to pretend. Often medium-quality works are trying to be upgraded by that phrase.
Basically there is someone i.e. collector who bought an artwork a while ago (if he is a so called “flipper” that could mean even just a few weeks ago) and now want’s to let it go.
It basically means a work has been owned by someone else before, this someone or line of previous owners is called “provenance” You could vice versa also call a flea market a secondary market or shall we simply rephrase to pre-loved works.
In case a dealer does not know what exact materials were used for an artwork and ended up on the canvas, that term might be very useful. It is comparable to a stew using leftovers in your fridge. One can be very thankful for it when there are materials such as urine, garbage etc. which do not sound too attractive when offering the work to potential clients.
A cool term for a pretty much old-fashioned genre. Certainly it is great if some younger artists still want to remain traces of their heritage and work with traditional techniques but then the question comes up whether that fancy re-branding is necessary and helpful.
It is a bit like saying the “organic” eggs are coming “directly from the farm”… Obviously the product made its way through some kind of factory to be packaged etc. and at some point every painting has once been created in an artists studio. It often shall emphasise the “super close” ties between the dealer and the artist.
Basically a mix between an art world domina, bodyguard and slave who needs to buy the artist’s favourite cookies or cigars to keep the mood up. She or He will be her or him P.A. during a major opening so people cannot approach him directly and surpass the boss (the gallery owner) but she/he also needs to whatsapp the artist hourly to remind of the urge to finish the work before the shippers will come to pick it up for the solo show.
johntoomeygallery.com, thesquirrelreview.com
