The Arts Ecosystem: Who’s Driving?
My own art collection is largely made up of works purchased through Melbourne galleries, and some acquired on travels when I was a full-time Director of ooi, a very successful design business – my own again. Theo and I bought a lot of art, always through galleries. There are very few cases in which we acquired work otherwise because we fully understood the impact on our industry. Of course, we have bought art from our own gallery now. Understanding that we are all running small businesses, and recognising that a gallery sale supports both the artist and the infrastructure around them, might just be a sustaining element – if you want the gallery structure to exist. Times are changing. We also need to include this idea for open conversation. Did we have too many restaurants pre-COVID? Was the gallery structure always going to fail? Are there too many galleries? Are there too many artists?
