Not for sale?

The remit of the gallery is “Not For Sale”, a commercial artist run gallery, for artists and true patrons. It is a space to show and exhibit works, but not necessarily sell them in a traditional way.

Artists want people to see and interact with their works, but ownership is a different concept, although often conflated. We (artists) all have works that we’d rather not sell, and often those are our most interesting works.

The gallery puts total control back in the hands of the artist, and embraces the idea of conditional ownership.

This is emphasised by clarifying what a collector might need to do to own a work (ie. have an institutional level collection; match a sale amount to a charity; pay in crypto; or barter).

On the gallery’s side, because of the unique “sale” structure, if an artist chooses to sell a work, they can give a voluntary fraction as a share of a sale to the gallery. In this way, the conventional power structure of gallery and artist is not only reversed, but made mutual.

 

This draws on post-feudal democratic economic theories like voluntaryism and cooperative organisational structures. 

Example conditions of sale set by the artist:

If an artist requires a collector to hold a work a minimum number of years, that is set.

If an artist requires to know the scope of the patrons collection, that is set.

If an artist requires to be paid in fiat, food, a lifetime supply of tea, or crypto, that is set.

If an artist requires an item in barter, that is set.

If an artist requires a matching amount given to a select charity, that is set.

If an artist requires a challenge for a collector, like skydiving, before they can buy the work, that is set.

We would propose that the Not For Sale gallery framework should give rise to a movement that is inherently opposed to the commodification of art. We hope this grows into a movement of producing and distributing morally positive art through the most beautiful, the most delightful and the most fun means possible. That’s your challenge.

“He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.”

As You Like It, Shakespeare.