12 March 2008
Gradually there is occurring some movement in the case ‘gallery O’. Occasionally they replied in 1 single sentence (after having sent my questions at least 2 times). But, the day after tomorrow the 2 boxes finally will be picked up by the courier to get back to New Zealand
I had promised my client the apple painting would be arrived in the Netherlands mid-March, but now that’s impossible. It’s still in one of the boxes.
We had to arrange everything ourselves, which actually is supposed to be a task for the gallery owner. I don’t mean that they have to pay for everything, but they should be in charge to organize the returning and prepare the documents, etc. It’s quite weird that I am the one who’s doing that now.
But if some gallery owners didn’t get enough money out of an exhibition, the artist apparently suddenly transformed into that annoying mosquito I was talking about. When I was a gallery owner myself (Yes, once I was!) I always found it very sad for the artist if I couldn’t sell anything for him. And then I ensured that at least he wouldn’t have anything to complain about the exhibition in every other area.
Another disturbing aspect of this adventure is the tax. When we shipped the paintings to Australia 6 months ago, we got a phone call from the customs. They were only willing to send them through to gallery O, if 3,600 Australian dollars was paid …
If the same paintings would leave Australia after the exhibition, then we could get back the money. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought this was a job the gallery had to deal with. Like it was correctly done by the Hong Kong gallery …
But there was no time to dwell on it too long, so I paid it right away by credit card.
Today we learned that gallery O had reclaimed that tax! They would pay me later. This makes me very nervous.