Picture This

He glanced across the floor of the restaurant to where his nemesis and rival gallery director Marty Hoffmann was holding court with a couple of minor art writers and a young Wall Street banker who bought art for the investment company he worked for. Making sure Susie was in their line of sight, Felix gave a friendly wave. Gratifyingly, Marty’s face suffused with jealousy as he realised who Felix’s dinner guest was. Conscious he was being watched, Felix leaned forward to refill Susie’s glass.

‘So do we have a specific theme for the show yet?’ he asked, keenly aware of how intimate their proximity would appear to onlookers.

Susie paused, wincing at the use of ‘we’.

‘I do have a theme. I’m taking five iconic paintings from diverse cultures and re-enacting them, with some twists… There will be a sixth painting, but I haven’t yet decided which – I’m leaving that open until the last minute. I often find that to have an open end to the process is liberating.’

Under the table, Susie stretched her long slim legs out, her foot accidentally brushing against his. Pleased, Felix didn’t move his foot away.

‘The work has a voice,’ Susie continued. ‘I’m only the conduit. All I can tell you is that there will be six large photographic images, 20 feet high, ten feet across. They will be in colour, and there will be some tinkering post-production.’

A little concerned by her vagueness, Felix leaned in. ‘A couple of the collectors I advise – Celestia del Dorores; I’m sure you know about the Dorores collection, one of the most important in Miami? And the Weiss people – are looking for pieces that will fit into their current collections. Celestia will buy anything that has red in it. But don’t worry, I can talk you through all this in the studio.’

Now she removed her foot. ‘No, you can’t. I don’t take dictation.’

‘This won’t be dictation. See it as benign guidance.’

‘Back home, it’s me who gets to audition the collectors, not the other way around.’

Surprised at how quickly the atmosphere had soured between them, Felix edged closer, smiling sympathetically. ‘Listen, Susie, American collectors know that you’re great, young and risky, but what they’re concerned about is whether the hype will last. Now you and I both know this isn’t hype; this is the onset of a profoundly important career, and we’re doing them a favour by even allowing them in on the sidelines, but trust me: they need to be humoured. Remember, there’s two of us making history at this table.’

‘There’s a clause in the contract: you and your staff are banned from the studio. You only get to see the work when it’s hung.’

‘I thought that was just spin for the myth. Susie, I know my audience. I know this market. It’s not London.’

‘I don’t care. My name alone sells. You don’t have to do one of your production numbers on it.’

She picked up a breadstick and snapped it. Felix glanced nervously over at Marty’s table; to his relief, his rival seemed engrossed in conversation.

‘Felix, did you hear me?’

Felix struggled to control his temper; there hadn’t been a single artist who had gone through his gallery without being ‘advised’ by him. As far as he was concerned, the artist might have a vision but that vision needed channelling if it was to achieve its commercial potential. Felix knew all the major collectors, knew what they were looking for. He also knew that when a piece of art made it into one of the top collections in the country, the value of the art went up and the artist became branded, making it possible to sell more works by that artist to the same collector or rival collectors for twice or thrice the price – within a year. It was a self-promoting and profit-making loop. And it all rested on Felix’s shoulders and his ability to manipulate the capricious tastes of his clients while assuaging the inflated egos of his artists.

‘Listen,’ he purred. ‘My clients like to think of themselves as independent-minded. Even worse, there’s usually a theme to their collections, generated by their own, often ill-educated and profoundly suburban, mindset. With Celestia it’s the colour red. With Harold Weiss it’s the number seven. So you put a small patch of red in, so you slip the number seven upside down in a landscape – no one’s going to know, but it gives me a more personalized angle to sell the work on. Collectors like to think they have some influence over the artist – it gets them hot.’

‘Felix, we negotiated this. You see the work the day we hang it.’

‘But I’m different from other gallerists. I’m the guy who makes the history-makers.’ Felix poured himself another drink.

‘And I’m famous for the no-see clause; you knew that when you signed the dotted line.’

‘I thought that was only a little bump in the road we’d be able to navigate when we met in person.’

‘Try a huge pothole. If you want to take the wheels off this juggernaut, drive straight over it,’ she dared him in a deceptively friendly manner.

‘So, I guess I’m going have to trust you,’ he replied carefully.

She downed her wine – her fourth glass that evening, he noted.

‘Come on, Felix, don’t look so forlorn.’ Her tone was playful now. ‘Here’s a clue: the paintings are from different eras and cultures, from China to France, from the 16th century through to the 19th. All of them iconic.’

‘I’m relieved that we can, at the very least, appeal to our Asian clients.’ He reached out his hand and placed it on hers; a calculated move. ‘Susie, you wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you. I’ve never fought so hard for an artist.’

Under the wine and jet lag, Susie felt the rush of hormones shoot through her – to her annoyance.

‘Desire as Myth was one of my all-out favourite shows,’ he told her earnestly. ‘Why the Guggenheim reneged on that deal, I’ll never know.’ It was a subtle put-down, a reminder that, although Susie might be the genius and although she might try to flex her power over him, without somewhere to show, without a curator or gallery director to choreograph a career, an artist was nothing: just so much dead flypaper flapping on a wall.

Susie, suddenly sober, pulled her hand away. ‘Didn’t matter,’ she retorted. ‘In fact, the Guggenheim’s vacillating ended up forcing Tate’s hand. That installation is now part of their permanent collection, and they paid a quarter of a million more than the Guggenheim’s original offer. So when you think about it, I have a lot to thank them for.’ She seemed unfazed.