Confessions of a Gallerina

Never underestimate a pretty face.

Santos, Jake. not even they can stop me now, 2024. Acrylic on canvas

I’m writing today to admit a very bad thing that I did, that I’ve been doing, that I’m still doing. But before getting to the bad thing, I ought to provide some context. So here is the context.

Context

I used to work for a commercial gallery in Toronto. Like most contemporary galleries, it was a lean, scrappy operation—just the Gallery Director, named Alisha, myself, named Georgia, and a roster of eight artists. My title was Assistant Director, which meant I did everything the Gallery Director didn’t want to.

I had been Assistant Director for four years. During this time, Alisha had come to trust me. Like, a lot. The gallery was open Wednesdays through Saturdays, but she only came in on Saturdays, for an hour or two, unless we were installing a show or hosting an opening. That means I was alone in the gallery for 20+ hours a week. I handled correspondence with collectors and artists, ran the newsletter and Instagram, processed orders, closed deals with visitors, booked the flights Alisha was constantly taking, and so on. I did this with little to no oversight. Despite the considerable responsibility I had taken on, I had not received a raise from my $18.75 hourly wage in two years (yes, I asked). Alisha never brought me to Basel or Miami or New York (yes, I asked). She never solicited my input on the gallery’s programming or artist selection (yes, I gave it anyway).

Why stay at such a job, you ask? Well, the answer is rather cliché. My MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice left me with few other options, and I needed money to maintain an art practice of my own. The job didn’t offer benefits, but neither would the bar or café I’d inevitably work at if not the gallery, which looked better on my CV. And there was the faintest glimmer of hope, I supposed, that Alicia, aged forty-two, might eventually pass me the torch if I stuck around long enough. I knew the operation inside-out, after all.

A more recent responsibility I had been given was to manage the gallery’s new e-commerce platform. Like anyone who works in e-commerce, I had no idea how e-commerce works. We paid a consultant three-quarters my yearly salary to set it up and then it was set up. Orders showed up in my inbox, and I arranged for shipping with our shipper. It was as simple as that.

One morning, several e-commerce emails arrived in rapid succession. A client was trying to place an order for a $6,200 painting. They had tried to checkout four times, but their card kept getting declined. Before I could see what painting it was, the gallery’s phone started ringing. Before I could say hello, a man from Montréal, Daniel Matte, was ranting about how our website was shitty and broken, how badly he had messed up with his boyfriend, how urgently he needed the painting to make amends. He sounded very old, very gay, very rich, and very French. You don’t have to work in art to know this is the Venn Diagram of a client that can ruin your career. I told him not to worry, not to worry. Calmez-vous. With no idea how to troubleshoot the e-commerce, I had him read out his credit card details, which I punched into our terminal manually. Voila, I said. The order had gone through. He thanked me and said his boyfriend will be over within an hour to pick up the painting en-route to Montréal.

I was surprised by how young his boyfriend appeared. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, close to my age, whereas Daniel Matte, based on my LinkedIn triangulation, could not have been younger than fifty. But alas, they were Québécois, and this was the age of Larry Gagosian. I was not in a position to judge. I chatted with the young man amicably, flirtatiously even, before he hoisted the art piece—a fuzzy, ambient abstract wrapped in bubble wrap—out the gallery door. I watched him slide it gently into his trunk from the window. He was a handsome little boy. He did not appear upset, as Daniel had suggested. He seemed thrilled about the art. You’re p’tit jeune loved it, I think, I texted Daniel. With the long leash I had been given, I was always sending playful, indecorous messages to clients. I thought it was appreciated in that uptight world. In fact, I believed my communications were the sole reason for the gallery’s success. It certainly wasn’t from the programming.

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I remember the exact moment we received the email from the credit card company, four months later, notifying us about the chargeback on Daniel Matte’s card, which was not, in fact, Daniel’s—Daniel didn’t exist—but a stolen card that “Daniel” had used fraudulently. I was reading an email from one of the gallery’s artists aloud to Alisha, over FaceTime. I still have a screenshot of the artist’s email, which said the following:

I hope you do a show of abstract Totally Original images such as mine, not everything I have is “stellar” but this series of new work is heads above your other abstracts which are mainly derivative of stars like Gerhart Richter and Abstract New York 1950s, Helen Frankenthaler or Joan Mitchell. Just saying, not a criticism. It would be great to get it into a museum or serious collection if you have a chance. One area in which I have no skill is marketing, such as you and Alisha, you are truly talented, amazing and focused. Bravo!

I finished reading the email and we burst out laughing. Then the email from the credit card company arrived. Oh No, I said. A bit of bad with the good, I remember saying—though I wasn’t sure what the good was. I told Alisha everything. All the details you already know, and more. Both of us had forgotten about the sale by then. It had hardly been discussed, all those months ago, beyond a quick debrief about Daniel’s dramatic phone call.

Alisha’s face deflated. You’re an idiot, she said. No, no, I said. I am not. Listen. What you have to understand is that this man, over the phone, well, how do I put it. He was gay. He was as gay as the sky. And when a man like that makes you an urgent offer and slaps down his credit card, you’ve got to accept it.

I was not being funny. I believed this to be incontrovertibly true, based on my observations in the art world. Also, I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse about the mistake. I was running the gallery for the next five hours, for less than $100, while Alisha was at her father’s property in Biarritz.

Well, you know how this works, Alisha said.

No, I do not.

We’ve already paid the artist her 50% and, for obvious reasons, we’re not asking for it back. This story can’t get out to anyone, in fact. It’s embarrassing. We need to cover that 50%. You need to cover it.

I think it’s illegal for you to ask me to do that.

Don’t be ridiculous, Georgia. You know we can’t afford a $3,200 hit. And I know you probably can’t either but listen. How about this. Hmmm, OK. I’ll cover half the 50% personally. That’s $1,600. So you need to find $1,600 and there’s no rush. So don’t worry about that. That’s fair, isn’t it? Just put aside a bit at a time, and when you have it, let me know. I won’t even ask about it. It’s just an eventual thing. I’ve got to go, hunny. It’s getting late here.

Alisha hung up. I closed down the gallery, even though it had only been open for seventeen minutes, and went for a long walk. Reflecting on the incident with Daniel, my mistake was obvious, and stupid. But it all happened so fast. From the point of view of the criminal, his was a well-targeted scheme. Galleries were overstretched, their employees often underpaid, non-technical, lacking in business acumen. Despite their practiced air of indifference, most were desperate to make a sale. The only part that didn’t add up was how the criminal was making money off the art. The prices these mid-tier artists sold for existed largely because of the gallery’s reputation; it seemed improbable they would fetch anything close to the same on the black market.

Then I turned to the other issue. I did not have $1,600. In fact, I had $3,400 in credit card debt and a student loan and rent in the most expensive city in the country. I knew that Alisha’s gallery sold at least $20,000 in art per month, based on the invoices I processed. Minus 50% commission, that’s $120,000 a year, before expenses. Not that much money either, I supposed. But Alisha was always taking art out of the office that never came back, without a paper trail, which led me to believe she was selling it outside of my purview to conceal how much the gallery really made. I don’t know, maybe I was being paranoid. The fact remained, I could not afford $1,600.

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I happened to run into fake-Daniel’s fake-boyfriend twice, around the city, in the ensuing months. The first encounter was two months after the chargeback. By then, I had set aside twenty-eight dollars to pay Alisha. I was walking down Dufferin Street when he walked right past me. We made eye contact, though I couldn’t recall where I recognized him from. I kept walking for fifteen seconds before realizing, then spun around to see him sprinting down the street. He disappeared into an alley and I started laughing. The idiot thought I would chase him. It was thirty-two degrees with the humidex and I was wearing my ballet flats, one of which had the sole re-attached with Krazy Glue.

He could not get away so easily on our second encounter, which occurred in a tiny gallery space. Not Alisha’s gallery, but a very similar one in the area. In fact, if you put the two gallery interiors and the work of their artists side-by-side, only about 100 people in Toronto would be able to discern the difference. The paintings on display were also soft, ambient abstracts. I walked into the room to find Daniel’s fake-boyfriend standing there, in front of a large painting, wearing skinny jeans. Skinny jeans. He had so much to learn.

I went right up to him.

So, ambient abstracts are the play for the black market, I said. Smart. Not too distinctive for the police. Big normie market. Easy to pawn off.

I was standing at his side, staring at the painting, as if we were a couple. I almost wanted to grab his hand. Not aggressively—tenderly. He turned to face me. His expression gave nothing away. Pardon? A french accent.

What I want to know is how you make the money, I whispered, shaking my fist. Where do you sell these stolen paintings. We filed a police report. I scoured Marketplace and Kijiji. You must have to take them so far away from here. Further than Montréal, surely. Alberta? Or down south.

He walked over to a different painting, clearly perturbed.

Listen, I said. I grabbed his arm. There were lots of people around and I’m a pretty girl, so it was fine. I owe my boss for that painting. You wanna steal from a stuck-up gallery, I get it. But look at me. I’m a fucking Chinatown art wench, not some trust fund kid. I eat A&W three nights a week. And I know who your daddy is. I’m onto your shit.

He pulled his arm away and left the gallery in a hurry. I followed right behind him. I’m not sure where I found this bravery. I guess it’s because he was just a kid, like me. A skinny little bitch with curly hair and he owed me $1,600.

Across the street from the gallery entrance, he mounted a motorcycle and put on a full-face helmet. I approached his bike without slowing. When I got close enough, he stuffed his hand in his pocket. Don’t come any closer, he said. I swear to god.

His accent was hard to take seriously. It was so dumb and French. And I knew, for a fact, that he didn’t have a weapon, because I could see every outline in the pockets of those skinny jeans. I’m not here to rat you out, you little punk, I said. I want you to take me on your bike. To your boss. Take me to Daniel.

Why the fuck would I do that.

I turned around and looked at the facade of the contemporary gallery. That fluorescent white cube beckoning through the pristine windows, the fashionable people staring at the walls pretending to know what they were looking at, the bottle of lukewarm sparkling wine by the entrance, the gorgeous gallerina at the desk with a bored, vacant expression. She had been in my MFA program, too. I had read her thesis. With those beauty and brains, she could go anywhere, do anything.

I turned back to him and took a step closer to his bike. I patted the leather of the seat, then put all my weight against it through my fist. Take me to Daniel, boy, I said. Because I know exactly how these galleries work. I’ve been running one for four years. And I’m looking for a better job.

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