Gallery

Tyler Dobson

Bad Habits — Based on a True Story

So, it’s 2020. At a house party amongst other Maine folk on the last night of 2019, they had beer, prosecco, champagne, whiskey, mushrooms, weed, and molly. They slept on the floor by a smouldering wood stove after staying up until six a.m. on January 1st, 2020. He was in a sleeping bag next to a rather beautiful and hairy farmer who had also lived in Brooklyn but relocated to Maine. After waking up still lit, he drove home and went back to bed. But then he woke up again, feeling elated to be alive. He made no resolutions. Instead, he was thinking about all the bad habits, and how it’s hard to change them. How they can hurt us, but often end up doing us some good. And, as always, how much fun they are. Why not indulge on the last day of the decade? It’s not as if this was his chemical cocktail every day. At least they didn’t do coke and special k like he did a couple weeks before, which threw him into a four-day depression. Maybe it’s the flu, he thought … but maybe not. Or maybe it was the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas, but we will get into that later. It’s really not so fun hiding in bed on Christmas Eve trying to figure out if there is an excuse to cancel your favorite holiday. Thankfully though, the holidays are over, and more importantly a decade in art.
     He left NYC for Maine on March 31st, 2018. New York was a shitty place at the time. Something urgent expelled his body, and some of his mind, from the city to the northeast. Real Fine Arts had finally closed. It was announced as such to everyone on their mailing list, rather abruptly, without fanfare. It was a classy approach initiated by his partner. But at the time there was nothing classy about the end of RFA. It was like being on fire constantly, like he might explode at any moment if he didn’t get out of there. People were sad and mad, confused and abused. They all went into the meat grinder that is New York City together, and came out as ground beasts. What was everyone going to do now? And who could they blame? Or at least who could they take it out on? 
     So, he sold all his furniture that had value (he was most sad to see the Aalto 710 Daybed go), signed another year-long lease on his apartment, got a subletter, a U-haul and a bag of weed, and was in Wyeth country in eight hours flat. Hi April 1st, 2018.

“They all went into the meat grinder that is New York City together, and came out as ground beasts.”

Being back in Maine quickly became its own kind of struggle. It seemed nearly impossible to leave behind the experience of bringing a gallery into the world that once knew the glow of success, and then failed miserably. With the turning of that page, he had reluctantly become a country boy who had a seemingly useless knowledge of a very specific culture. There was no one to share it with any longer. He was a city slicker back on rural turf in a ten town county full of many rednecks and people who looked familiar, but no longer had names. He got a job at a vacation rental agency that was disorganized and in transition. The manager left at the end of the summer, with a one month notice to him, which was when he was shuffled into taking over with no experience. You live, you learn. And he would also put here, you choke, you learn. Managing a company was the absolute last thing on his mind at the time. He left New York for THIS? He often thought. No, he left New York because he had to. As soon as the closing of the gallery was announced everything became pretty clear. Life as he knew it was cancelled.
     Though he was eight hours away he couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone was disappointed in him. Not really the art world en masse. He was sure they were dealing with their own sense of loss with the shuttering of the gallery. No, he was thinking more about the people that they worked so hard to keep it open for. Things were so messy building up to the end that it seemed relationships too were beyond repair. His feeling then was that he had put his own ambitions as an artist on the back burner for too long. Yes to make a living, but more importantly, for the ultimate goal of trying to keep it going for those involved. To not just throw away what they had all worked so long and hard to build. In all that time so much effort went into the gallery that it became his life. He had remained active as an artist, but it never really felt like he was allowed to be both artist and dealer. People always seemed more attracted to his dealer side. The fact that it went on for so long seemed a bit insane to him. He still has Real Fine Arts PTSD. But it’s okay to look back and be a little confused, it has only been two years since it all ended.
     The main reason they closed was to finally let go of the extreme stress, the constant conflict really, that came from the inability of their gallery model to sustain itself. Let’s face it, they often showed unsellable art. They did this in the middle of nowhere, far from Chelsea, under the BQE, in an industrial area of Brooklyn. They didn’t have family money to invest. Once they started doing fairs they showed unsellable art there too. Out of hope he guessed, because they foolishly believed in what they were doing. That was the true beginning of their downfall. In those last couple years it was the effort, and ultimate let down, of trying to make enough sales to get everyone paid, to get every last RFA related bill paid, that became life-threatening. Then there were the fights. The endless and frankly terrible fighting of two people who had just had way more than enough of each other. So, for him, the relationship is really what made them realize the gallery would not ever find the longevity that everyone thought it was worth.

“Once they started doing fairs they showed unsellable art there too. Out of hope he guessed, because they foolishly believed in what they were doing.”

     As for sales, it was a constant begging for people to buy work. Now no one wanted their stuff, and even worse, it had become his job to constantly ask for their money anyway. One of his last sales was a new Antek Walczak painting and a multi-part Sam Pulitzer drawing, to a new collector. There was a glimmer of hope there, he admitted. Then there was the reluctant resale of two early Mathieu Malouf paintings he really loved. Along with a couple other things, those were the last deals that paid everything off and enabled them to close without debt to anyone. But there were still the back taxes owed to the IRS from operating in the red for three years. His personal debt was close to $ 50k at the time. That’s what happens when you keep a non-commercial gallery open for a few years too long, he thought. At least they didn’t go the Mary Boone route, although he will admit there have been times when he thought being in jail might be a more interesting proposition than the life he was currently living.
     One thing they both have is a collection of artworks from the last ten years. His are individually packed in custom cardboard boxes in his parents home in Tenants Harbor, Maine. The tiny coastal village’s claim to fame is its connection to the Wyeth family, and to Linda Bean, who holds court there with a slew of vacation properties, a couple wharfs, general stores and a gallery that sells works by the Wyeths. She is most notably a part owner of L. L. Bean, and someone who donated money to Donald Trump.
     Anyway, sometimes he rifles through the boxes, which contain the pieces he got in the divorce, and lets the memories flood in. They are prized possessions, really. Souvenirs from the artists they loved and tried to support. Jeanette Mundt breasts, à  la Gauguin. A witchy little Whitney Claflin painting from her successful show, Crows, at Real Fine Arts. A Sam Pulitzer drawing framed by a record from his Sotoso exhibition in Brussels, which he was able to see in person. Small Gawker, a multi-canvas text painting by Morag Keil. A Nicolas Ceccaldi deer skull from his solo at Kunstverein Munich, which he was also able to see in person. Lena Henke’s green ceramic car with horse hoof wheels. The list goes on. Some of them remind him of the times in which they were acquired. Times when there was more money. Times when they knew it would help certain artists get by if they bought a work.
     There was a purge of their three storage units in those last years too. They found things that had been in there since the very first shows at the gallery. Getting the work back to the artists was like opening up their very own fine art shipping company, only the recipients were not always happy to get the cargo. It was like pulling teeth trying to figure out how to deal with each situation. The units were wall to wall art, with little room to navigate in between. A hoarder’s paradise. They often felt like parents. Parents who had twenty children too many. If they didn’t finally return to the artist’s storage or studio, works were destroyed or went to more financially fluid galleries. But look what they did! Look what they created! They are history, literally. Like American Fine Arts before them, except they are still alive. When it happened, it all seemed like such a blur. He didn’t know if life could move forward at the time. He kept receiving emails with condolences and praise, all wrapped up in artful bundles of heartfelt admiration. These were not from the artists that they had worked ten years to develop careers for. They were from innocent bystanders, who wanted to express gratitude for what they had accomplished. He knew that at the time too, but didn’t know how to respond. His response now is “thank you.” It’s nice to know that people care. At the time though, the emails only reinforced, and made more unbearable, the complex feelings that came with the end of that era. Their era. Real Fine Arts opened on December 19th 2008, with Send Me Weeks And Weeks Of Life, and closed on March 10th, 2018, with Antek Walczak’sthird show at the gallery. Send me weeks and weeks of death came next.
     The experience of running Real Fine Arts sucked the soul right out of his body but it was a glorious soul sucking. He is still in the process of getting it back honestly. He still doesn’t know its full impact, and though it was a unique kind of self-inflicted torture, those years may end up being some of the most interesting and challenging of his life. They were so young and had no idea how to run a business, let alone an art gallery. When they got swept up in the last little boom for emerging art in the early 2010s it was a complete thrill. Certain collectors, gallerists, writers and advisors started to pay attention and show support. He realized they were cool then. Cool enough to drive a collector around South Beach in their Mercedes convertible while coked up and a bit drunk. People started to buy things, write about their shows and enable them to participate in the premier art fairs of the world. Their first big fair was Independent NY and they made close to $ 150,000. It was like when Lloyd and Harry found out that the briefcase was full of cash in Dumb And Dumber (1994). But simultaneously they were dumb and dumber. Bad at money and bad at getting along. But In those early years, he remembered doing everything with a kind of diligence, enthusiasm and resolve that may have helped usher in those golden years. Over time though, it slowly faded into a state more akin to finding the will to survive. When things are laid threadbare like that you know something is wrong.

“The experience of running Real Fine Arts sucked the soul right out of his body but it was a glorious soul sucking.”

     Let’s talk more about the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. Since he left the city, he managed to make quite a bit of work and have two solo exhibitions in New York. One at Svetlana called Coke Joke, and one at Team, called To Two Too. After that one, which had just closed on November 9th of 2019, they destroyed yet another good relationship, for no apparent reason. He mentioned this in a subsequent Instagram post. About a month after his show closed, and just before the holidays, which was the worst timing by the way, the Grinch emailed him out of the blue, and asked him to pick up his own work. He was living in Maine at the time, mind you. It was under a strict timeline of just after the new year. No reason was given. Shipping the work to Maine was out of the question. After his very public post, someone from there texted him saying his show was literally “a failure in every way.” Why would you have shown his art in the first place then? They also insisted they never offered him representation. Instead they continued, it was him that wanted representation and that is why, when he didn’t get it, he “publicly besmirched” them. Only crazy people use words like that. Like the word “meritorious” which was the one from their Instagram story that triggered his post that day.
     What actually happened was that leading up to the show, the Grinch groomed him with a slew of falsely supportive communications. In one of them he actually texted him flat out he would represent him in New York and “work his ass off for him.” At the time, his response was “wow that’s a lot to think about.” The truth is he never wanted to be represented by Team, and he never said yes. Frankly he still valued, and wanted to continue his relationship with 47 Canal, where he had two solo shows, and many good memories. He just thought it would be harmless to do a little show. As it turned out, it was pretty harmful. He’s not trying to harp on it, but that is what happened, and he still has screen shots if you want to DM him.
     He will say that one of his favorite things to do is laundry. And that laundry just needed some extra Instagram stain removal. People do unfortunate things all the time. They are often motivated by other forces in their lives. Sometimes the outcome is just out of fragile human control. He thought when the Grinch tried to steal his Christmas, it was because something difficult was going on in his life too. Artnet.com had recently dropped a scathing piece about the gallery’s financial conduct with artists, et cetera. Was he targeted because the show he had just had represented no financial gain? Was he someone who maybe amplified the Grinch’s own sense of failure? That’s all he could come up with, other than the recent miniature Mark Rothko paintings he had been making. He posted a few on Instagram, which he was sure the Grinch hated. You cannot control him, Grinch!
     Do you ever Google yourself and think, oh, I was better then? Or, my goodness thank God that’s over. Do you ever wonder while you are doing that if you could ever do something as good, or as bad again? In trying to grapple with the failure that he felt when Real Fine Arts closed, he wondered to himself, was it actually that bad? Or was it just a necessary end of an era? Was it always meant to be, so to speak? He also wondered if the art world considered that failure an insurmountable part of his provenance. Did the death of RFA and its surrounding follies swiftly end his reputation? It’s not as if he frets about this every day, but Jeremy Blake and Teresa Duncan have crossed his mind more than once. Paranoia is always something that you have to worry about getting the best of you.
     Because of all this life changing, and stuff being in flux, he is constantly surprised by how resilient people can be. Like, even though they were probably in hell, he looks back at it affectionately. Although, at the time, it felt as though there was no escape from the huge task that lay ahead. Hence his flight to the motherland. It took a really long time to unlive the pain that was lived, and everything he did for a while felt like a compromise, like he could never be as good as he once was. But that has changed. He feels better. And finally, two years later, he is moving back to New York. Life has him slowly realizing that failure has been part of the narrative all along, and that perhaps it will be forever.