Help I Hate...My Freeloader

Every week, The Art Journal’s resident art world Agony Aunt Charlotte Jansen answers your questions about access, gatekeeping and sticky social problems.

Have a burning question for her? Get in touch anonymously here.

A collector who has never bought anything from our gallery insists on being invited to every private view, dinner, and international fair we do. They arrive early, stay late, monopolise the artist, and repeatedly tell other guests they're “very close” to our programme. Do I finally ask them to buy something?

Congratulations! You have managed to acquire a collector without the inconvenience of actually selling them anything. In an increasingly precarious art market, this is not nothing. They have, at the very least, demonstrated an impressive commitment to your hospitality, your champagne and your artists' time.

Jokes aside – being a fixture of your gallery’s social life is definitely not a substitute for being an actual patron of your programme. I know this distinction may come across as vulgar – but every gallerist has to confront the freeloading at some point. 

The question, of course, is not whether you should ask them to buy something. It is whether you can do so without making them feel that the friendship they have so carefully cultivated with you and your roster of artists was in fact a long, protracted funnel to an artwork sale. You will need to go about this issue with tact, curiosity and, if necessary, a little strategic disappointment. 

First, consider what this collector actually wants. They may genuinely love your artists but lack the means to acquire it at the moment. What do you know about their financial status, I wonder? I.e. are they loaded, or just pretending to be? They may be building relationships in the hope of buying something eventually… or they just enjoy the social capital of being associated with your gallery without ever intending to make a purchase. Or they could be the most frustrating kind of collector: someone who wants the privileges of proximity without the commitment of patronage. There are plenty of all of these types circulating galleries.

These distinctions matter, because they will affect how you deal with this. I would begin by gently moving the relationship out of the social sphere and into the professional one. Rather than continuing to invite them indiscriminately to all your events, arrange a proper conversation about the programme. 

Ask what they are collecting, what they have been looking at – maybe even tentatively enquire about what they’ve been buying recently. That might be revealing. You might even offer to show them a work that you think would suit them. This is not a sales ambush, just an invitation to establish whether their enthusiasm has any practical direction.

If they respond with genuine interest, excellent. You may have discovered a collector who simply needed encouragement. If they remain conspicuously vague, however, you have learned something equally valuable. Should you still ask them to buy something? Absolutely. But please do not do it in the manner of a beleaguered maître d' presenting the bill to a guest who has been occupying the best table in the restaurant for more than their allotted two-hour time slot.

Make your proposition specific and sincere. Tell them which work you think they should acquire and why. Give them the opportunity to really be the collector they’re purporting to be.

The more delicate issue is their habit of telling other guests that they are "very close" to your programme. This, reading between the lines, is what really irritates you, more than their reluctance to buy, because they appear to be appropriating a relationship that you have spent considerable time and energy on cultivating. 

There is something faintly absurd about watching someone borrow the prestige of your gallery while contributing nothing to its survival. Don’t call them out on it – appearing territorial about your circle will reflect badly on you. If the situation becomes genuinely misleading, simply describe the relationship accurately when necessary. You might say, for example, with impeccable politeness, that they are a regular visitor and a great admirer of the artists. 

You don’t actually need to invite them to everything. A private view, fine, but an international fair is a considerable expense and investment - you can save that for people who are putting cash back into your pockets. 

You need not withdraw your hospitality altogether. But perhaps the collector can be invited to the opening rather than the dinner, or to the gallery rather than the fair. Your gallery isn’t a member’s club, and if it was, they’d be paying a subscription fee. The art world has always been full of people who mistake access for intimacy and proximity for patronage.