Why is it risky to build an art business that relies heavily on galleries and third-party platforms?

Building your business on third parties—whether offline galleries or online platforms—is fundamentally unstable because you have no control. A gallery can drop your work at any time if sales slow or they find another artist. Online platforms can change their algorithms, effectively burying your visibility overnight. You’re not building your own customer list, you’re not keeping most of the profit (often losing 50% in commission), and you have zero leverage. When a crisis hits (like a pandemic lockdown), that weakness gets exposed immediately. You’ve built your house on sand, and the rug will eventually be pulled out from under you. The solution is to own your distribution: build a direct relationship with your customers through your own website and email list, so no one can take that away from you.

---

Asked by general teaching point · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-06-13