As I wake on Sunday with a slight hangover from some moderately priced wine illuminated by certain sulfites, I realized something important. Well, probably a few things, actually. Part of it is when you go away from your your own personal setting, your box, your practice - even for just a while - this sense of dislocation also comes with a reality check. Part of that comes in the form of simple things like the allusions I’m imagining in the wisdom found in my fortune cookie last night which read: “The greatest ownership is embracement of emptiness”. It caused pause in my life. A fleeting little saying, most certainly mass produced could lend itself to my imagining the fabrication of an entire work of art, based on my own past personal experiences. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Coming to Florida for the first time (perhaps the last) helped me gauge the art world in a very general way. And I would say beyond the beautiful things, the history, the gobs of money that go into it all, the glamour (and glitz)…underlying I see a dour lot. Mind you, many of these folks are well heeled and educated, most traveling long distances, and here to sell. But the sense of relationship building goes cold with the stiff corporate model and the higher than thou climb of the roster of prestige. Many have already made it there, so what’s next many might ask?

This maybe only understood on a 50,000 foot view of it all, rather than the few feet you stand back to view their wares. I guess I’m probably talking about dealers moreso than collectors, and certainly not about most of the artists (some, sure) - but it makes you stop and wonder what’s actually happening. The art world has its multifarious factions of image makers who keep things fresh and ripe, it has its corporate accounts, bank transfers, credit checks and the business of the business. But I would be so bold as to ask how deep is the course of relationship building? Who is selling who here? And why? How much do you invest in a personal and artistic vision, and how much of that investment is solely based on the bottom line?

This said, the dealer, especially the newer dealer, is most certainly something of a fortune teller. And a risk taker on many levels. And raising the bar has got to seem an insurmountable task as we all know “it’s been said and done” before. But how do you say it with a kind of resonance so that it makes sense for right now? How do you put the whole thing into perspective for a general audience?

I fear that I have many more questions than answers today, but despite the myths and ambiguity, I’m empathetic to the extremely important place that the average dealer plays in the art world-at-large.

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