An Inherited Mess: How a High-Growth Fantasy Is Destroying the Art World from Within

I entered the art world in 2004. I can still hear the first dealer I worked for in San Francisco railing against the “Wal-Martization” of the art world, fueled by the rapid rise of the global art fair circuit: Frieze London, NADA Miami, and Zona Maco all launched in 2003, Art Basel Miami Beach a year earlier. At 26 and blind to the industry’s inner workings, I assumed his politics rejected a model that stripped away the intellectual pursuit he valued above all else. In hindsight, it was a clear foreshadowing of where the industry was headed and who would ultimately be allowed to participate.

The very mechanisms, like art fairs and international locations, that once promised wider access and visibility have instead concentrated power in the hands of a few, reshaping the art world into a game of capital, scale, and endurance that few can afford to play at the level required.The current erosion of the art market is not a cyclical contraction; it is the result of oversaturation and a speculative economy in which artworks have functioned as fictitious capital, reinforced by a liquidity crisis where overextended galleries frequently find themselves prioritizing rising commercial overhead over timely payments to artists. This structural dynamic accelerated during the pandemic and has been deepening every year since.

Tim Schneider’s widely talked-about article this past July in the Financial Times, titled “The art world’s age of empires may be over,” mimicked how misunderstood the situation is, asking a mismatched cast of dealers the tone-deaf question: have the recent gallery closures “scared younger dealers from trying to build empires?” Dealer Stuart Shave, of London’s Modern Art, was the single voice to correctly identify that the “perpetual growth model took off before its effects were understood.” In essence, a user error.

The dealers referenced in that article as “casualties” of the decline are Gen X, not Baby Boomers, a demographic correction that matters for understanding how the last 30 years of this industry were shaped. They represented a deliberate break from the older generation. The dealer I worked for in San Francisco in 2004, who was 60 years old at the time, rejected expansion beyond a regional, day-to-day operation. By contrast, the Gen X dealers that came after him embraced a globalized, highly social model that prioritized competitive gallery brands and accelerated profit-driven growth. 

Grow or Go? Rampant, and Rapid, Expansion

Over the past decade, the pressure for rapid expansion has pushed galleries to open secondary locations and larger spaces in specific neighborhoods. But it was not a matter of ambition alone, that expansion became visual proof of success. This model forced galleries into a permanent state of high overhead and nonstop travel, necessary to secure positions at increasingly expensive art fairs, to service artists who desired global visibility, and to manage clients who relied on constant access.

Consequently, when dealers cite ‘system fatigue’ or “burnout” as a reason for shuttering long-standing operations, it signals a broader industry reckoning. There is a clear irony here: the architects and beneficiaries of the ‘upward and outward’ expansion of the last thirty years are now retreating from the very high-intensity, globalized model they once championed.

The past few years of gallery closures do not signal a clean exit, but a ‘bag drop’ of systemic proportions. That burden lands squarely on those downstream, specifically the artists, whose revenue is increasingly diverted to service unparalleled operating debt amidst a colliding industry downturn and recession. To keep pace in this high-overhead forum, galleries demand artists produce more at a quicker rate and simultaneously require higher sales margins to absorb the increased costs of rent, payroll, insurance, art fairs, and logistics. As gallery ownership becomes more expensive, if art sales cannot maintain momentum, the burden of risk will fall on the artist by way of delayed payments, steeper discounts, reduced production allowances, and erratic pricing. This directly impacts what is created or imagined, what is possible, and the limitations under which artists will have to function.

The lure of emulation, captured in Schneider’s framing of gallery “empires,” ensnares both artists and young dealers, convincing them that the only viable path is the one already carved by leveraged mid-tier or blue-chip galleries. For many dealers, however, gallery ownership is a small-business venture with razor-thin margins, long hours, and little capacity to compete at the level where the bar has been set.

Younger dealers often attempted to emulate this growth model as “the price of admission,” taking on leases and renovations they could not sustain and then collapsing under debt, as was detailed in the closing of Clearing this past August. Public narratives around these closures have emphasized dealer distress, largely obscuring the financial and logistical burdens shifted onto artists and employees. Artists have been left waiting for returned work and overdue payments, while affected employees have been dropped into one of the most challenging job markets in decades. This is emulation and delusion on full display: following the rules set by predecessors who themselves were increasingly leveraged, while disregarding their own financial limits.

As an industry driven by high-net-worth individuals, the art world inevitably mirrors broader market dynamics, currently intensified by the largest wealth-inequality gap in a century. Just as global markets are dominated by the ultra-wealthy, consolidating assets and fostering dependence on private capital, the art world exhibits the same pressures. Its levers are increasingly controlled by individuals who, through inherited or newly acquired wealth, family connections, PR machinery, and the ability to maintain multiple fair participations and locations, can rapidly buy influence.

Yet the demands of scale force galleries to prioritize immediate sales and online visibility over the long-term strategic work necessary to establish critical value and secure an artist’s legacy.

The reason this decline feels complex is not due to the existence of “multiple art worlds,” but the use of savvy public relations strategies to reframe dealer exits, obscuring the underlying fiscal recklessness. The more-is-better model initiated in the early 2000s has long exhausted its runway, and the untenability of insisting this tradition remain on life support has dampened the entire industry. This structural failure is glaring and is compounded by individuals who continue to extract profit through new, unnecessary leases, redundant online platforms, and excessive art fair participation, deprioritizing the core function: focusing on artists and producing meaningful exhibitions.

The recent decision by several dealers to reexamine the necessity of fair participation and pull out of this month’s Art Basel Miami Beach  is the correct answer to protecting both the business and financial life of the artists represented. This is a prudent move. Otherwise, the baton will be handed to the dealers and artists who belong to the asset classes that can afford to continue participating at any cost, shaping this industry into a sterile, off-the-rack retail venture.

Ultimately, It’s the Artists who Suffer

In this current iteration of the art world, artists—the people who’ve most sustained this industry, have been the least protected. Whether galleries scramble for liquidity, close their doors, or have the ability to continue funding their venture at the level expected, artists remain in debt, laboring for speculative returns and watching their markets be inflated or collapsed without recourse. This is a short runway that doesn’t deliver past its transaction.

Dealers work for artists, not the other way around; therefore artists should select representation based on tangible benefits. A gallery’s physical location reveals little about its financial health or sustainability, particularly given the industry’s short, incompetent growth trajectory. The more critical question is who ultimately controls the business’s finances, a role not always reflected by the name on the door.

The role of the dealer has always demanded unabashed financial awareness and a specific confidence to know when to refuse the status quo. The ability to identify, take risks on, and deliver the best work and artists to the public does not come from individuals who follow others in a manic bid for wealth and recognition. Longevity becomes irrelevant if the returns don’t measure up to the fundamental reasons for entering the field in the first place. No one enters this business to get rich, unless they’ve already decided that’s how it ends.

Petra Bibeau is an art dealer, gallery owner, and director of a New York-based art advisory. She previously held positions at Stephen Wirtz, Fraenkel Gallery, Casemore Gallery, and Anne Bruder Art, before cofounding New York’s Bibeau Krueuger in 2020. This year, the gallery transitioned an itinerant model.