Recently, Independent’s founder Elizabeth Dee sat down with advisor and market writer Josh Baer to have a frank discussion about the current state of New York galleries and the city’s art market, ahead of the 2025 edition of Independent 20th Century. They covered the challenges facing galleries, solutions they can implement today, how fairs can help them shape their artist’s markets and connect with critical audiences, and what to look forward to at this year’s fair. The resulting dialogue has been edited for clarity and brevity below.
Josh Baer: I think a lot of galleries are only now hitting the “Oh, shit” point. The current sales volume is what it is and it’s going to be like that for a while. A quote I like to use a lot lately is, “Hope is not a strategy.” What advice do you have for them?
Elizabeth Dee: I definitely have been in similar places myself in the past as a former gallerist. I speak to 20 galleries a week on average and those in New York are in three distinct camps right now. Total mavericks and visionaries who are in an all-or-nothing mindset. Outwardly established galleries that have previously been too status-oriented because it once served them and no longer does. And—the majority—galleries that are right-sizing their overhead (rent, staff and fairs) with their performance. Some of these galleries are doing fine, by the way, which has not been reported on nearly enough. Others are having serious trouble and may consolidate or close in the coming year.
Because there was such a sugar high during COVID, there were galleries that thought they could mint their unique proposition for the long-term by taking on bigger costs. Some of these galleries, being believers in their artists’ potential, overextended their gallery expansion, and justified it with raising artwork pricing to meet collector demand to unsustainable levels. Even if these galleries “survive” as you say, my bigger concern is their impact today and if their artist roster stays strong, and their shows remain great.
Look at Clearing, one of our former exhibitors, who commissioned his rising artists for special presentations, such as Harold Ancart for Independent in 2018. Olivier Babin, the founder, was doing game-changing work for a period of time. Ancart’s Independent presentation made a major impact and our collectors got in at the right moment at the right price. But Clearing made all too common yet critical mistakes and took on too much overhead in an effort to compete. Almost overnight, if you looked closely, Clearing felt pressure to compromise or to be like everyone else—high prices, many artists on the roster, some of them overexposed. Or look at Tim Blum, who with Jeff Poe, did amazing things for LA in the 90s to early 2000s, but he drank the Kool-Aid that money equaled gallery status, and that he could be a global brand like Gagosian. It’s unsurprising to me that in the process of expanding during a market like this one, he saw that wasn’t the case. In that two decade cycle of riding market waves, I hardly recognize his program from where it once began.
My point is that there are far too many of the same mistakes being made by galleries in business now that concern me more than Clearing or Blum closing—they had a good run. There are other New York galleries, which shall remain nameless, that once were doing similar game-changing work, elevating their artists, and now are doing very mediocre work. They seem to have forgotten the assignment of being a gallerist. This is holding everyone back who is doing amazing work right now, and well-poised to compete. We cannot see this because of the few who are misrepresenting the whole. It sets a very negative environment for those that want to be great at what they do.
Fairs are also key in this scenario and the issues are similar but not the same. Those that are doing extremely average work, are misrepresenting value and that’s creating a negative bias that’s impacting the market, artists, galleries and the entire industry. One prominent top 200 collector with a banking background said to me this is an “index fund problem”. She meant the effect seen at some poorly curated international fairs, where the brand mutes the gallery presentations, and when that happens across many galleries, the entire show becomes so uninteresting that collectors (like her) no longer want to go to them.
And rightfully so. Many of the offending fairs I am referring to, are now designed for no highs and no lows and no one talks openly enough about these issues. So the “Oh, shit” moment you mention, it’s more challenging than a recession cycle, because many galleries and fairs are not meeting the mission they set out with or servicing collectors and curators well.
Good solutions already exist. Positive changes around exhibitions and connecting people in ways that are inspiring is a starting point. Galleries have to balance this curatorial challenge with competing price expectations between the collector and the artist. The artists want prices high and collectors want to see them come down (unless they own the work already). This is a stalemate and galleries are going to be making hard choices but those choices are really important.
After that, making great shows is in a gallery’s control, and a way for people to be inspired and surprised by the art world and where it is going next.
Willie Daniels, Poinciana with Cotton Candy Clouds, c. 1990s – 2000s, Oil on masonite, 24 7/8 x 36 7/8 in., photography by Adam Reich. Courtesy of Jeremy Scholar and Independent.
Josh Baer: Galleries are complaining to me that curators don’t come to their shows, even in New York. But museum curators and collectors have a time problem. Popular exhibition formats, like fairs, have been challenging the gallery audience for their time. I think that the galleries could take a lot out of the playbook of the museums, because the museums are more focused on the audience and their shows.
You and I can go to gallery shows and get a lot out of that because of our history, because of the community, because of the institutional knowledge we have. But for somebody who doesn’t have that, it’s not super fun.
Elizabeth Dee: Most of the younger collectors I meet in New York are active in museum patron groups. I don’t meet them out of thin air on social media. If you and I were collectors now, coming fresh into the galleries where no one says hello, where no one makes eye contact, where there are press releases that make no sense, where you get mass newsletter mailings and offer PDFs, I think we’d not be so keen. I can understand why collectors are asking for more imagination, customization, hospitality, and connection than what this format currently provides.
I think if fairs can cut costs for their galleries, they can take more risks curatorially. In New York, fairs should be in a position to contribute work on projects the market is interested in thinking through, then the gallery has what they need to thrive and accelerate their connection with new collectors and curators. We are doing this actively at the moment. Next May, Independent at Pier 36 will cost significantly less for galleries, which is welcome news. Our fair needs to help shape the New York market for contemporary artists and help galleries build careers with greater immediate impact than can happen in the gallery.
Independent is very strong in terms of the market, we understand timing and opportunity and position presentations we think will do well. I think we’re the only fair that puts out a post-event market report, because we are accountable. If you subscribed, you would have seen that the galleries at the fair last spring reported a sell-out rate of twice that in 2024. Half of those sales were to new clients, which is a major plus for galleries. Fairs need to know their market and what’s coming next.
Connecting with people is our focus. The fair can send out invitations, but galleries can too. Every gallery has a VIP portal, with passes, to send out invites personally and encourage guests to physically come to the fair. And at Independent, if you don’t do that, you’re getting fined $2,000. We rolled it out last year because we were seeing galleries not inviting anyone. They thought, “Well, you have everyone’s names, so you’re doing it.” And we said, “Of course we’re doing it and we’re doing it well, but this is why you spend the money you spend—to let clients know that their presence is important to you personally.”
That is also why we launched Independent 20th Century in 2022, because New York had no modern fair, and we wanted to elevate galleries working with artists and avant-garde movements from 1900 to 2000, and bring them together with collectors invested in these areas. This is a growing area of the art market that we are specialized in.
We do something similar for galleries in their galleries. We are connecting galleries with arts writers, through Independent Bureau, a forward diary press service that seeks to support more diverse representation in arts coverage. We currently reach a robust network of 350 subscribed journalists around the world who cover New York exhibitions, and are planning to expand to include Los Angeles and London galleries and non-profits in 2025.
Pablo Picasso, Nature Morte au Verre sous La Lampe, 1962, Linocut, 24 ½ x 29 9 /16 in. Courtesy of John Szoke Gallery and Independent.
Josh Baer: Gallerists need to show up and be on their stand at the fair. Like 80% of the time. Often they come for the opening and then they’re gone after a few hours. If I’m a new client, I want to meet the guy whose name is on the door.
Elizabeth Dee: I agree. If you come back to Independent on a Sunday, you’re going to see more of our galleries there, we are doing something more high-touch. I agree with you.
Josh Baer: Let’s talk about what our readers can expect from the show this year.
Elizabeth Dee: The stories around the show just get richer and richer every year. With 32 presentations, you’ll see a focus on female artists from the Arab region, and a cameo from Tony Shafrazi who reinterprets his roots in Iran and New York. We will have a look at how artists were able to thrive during repressive regimes, with particular focus on Argentina and Latin America, and a look at the Kabakovs’ period of working in Russia in the 1980s–1990s. There will be two retrospectives, one of pop/beat American artist Dan Basen, whose rise to prominence in the 1960s was cut short by suicide at the age of 30, and George Roualt, who’s work impacted the larger culture in France and America. And a solo presentation of Leonor Fini, who is getting her due prominence, following Cecilia Alemani’s Venice Biennial. We have a show of the Florida Highwaymen, self-taught black artists who used the Hudson River School as models for their work. A Picasso focus with John Szoke, who writes an amazing essay on the artist every single week and publishes it through his gallery. We’re also paying tribute to the late great Joe Zucker with Jupiter.
On the emerging side, there is a rising hot project called Mariposa you should put on your radar. They will be doing this really risque Peter Berlin project that you have to find in a semi private space in the fair. It probably won’t make it onto the Instagram feed, because it’s so sexually explicit. These are the things the Independent curatorial team gets excited about. And while you’re at the show, you’ll see The Baer Faxt Kiosk, where visitors can sign up for your new free newsletter which is going to be especially geared to the new collector class and what’s next.
