The question comes up in every conversation, with artists as much as with buyers. The two trades look alike from a distance; they do not do the same work. Here are the differences with the work of an artist agency, without caricature, because a gallery does some things very well that an agency does not do at all.
The space
A gallery is first of all a space. It has an address, a window, a hang that changes every six weeks. Its economics rest on that space: the rent, the passing trade, the opening, the fair. What is not on the wall does not exist for the visitor.
An agency needs no walls. Its exhibition space is the catalogue, and a catalogue has no limit of space. Where a gallery shows fifteen pieces, an agency publishes a hundred and fifty. That choice has a cost, the absence of the physical encounter with the work, and an advantage, the whole view.
Selection
A gallery selects in order to hang. It chooses the pieces that speak to each other, those that fit the space, those that sell. That is its trade, and it is legitimate.
An agency documents the whole. At ARTDELION, the 137 works of Pierre Le Caër and the 163 of Gabriel Lemaire Sicre are published in full, including the pieces that are not for sale. A collector sees a trajectory, not a selection. A researcher finds a work cited in a book.
Exclusivity
A gallery often works on territorial exclusivity: it is the only one representing the artist in a city or a country, and that exclusivity justifies its investment.
An agency can work differently, on non exclusive representation, the artist remaining free to sell directly or to exhibit elsewhere. That is more flexible for the artist and more demanding for the agency, which has to bring something you cannot obtain without it.
Commission
Both take a share. A gallery commonly sits between 40 and 50 per cent of the retail price, which makes sense given its fixed costs. An agency with no physical space has lower costs and therefore no reason to charge the same rates. The important point is not the percentage, it is transparency: artist and buyer alike should know beforehand, not afterwards.
Guiding the buyer
This is where the difference is most concrete. Buying a 200 kilo sculpture raises questions a painting does not: transport, lifting, the plinth, insurance, where it will stand. An agency that follows an artist over time knows those constraints piece by piece. At ARTDELION every acquisition goes through a written quotation, a secure payment, an insured delivery and a certificate where the artist issues one.
How to choose, as an artist
A few markers, put plainly.
A gallery suits an artist who needs a space, an opening, a network of collectors already in place, and who accepts exclusivity.
An agency suits an artist whose production is too large for a hang, whose work needs a story, or who works far from the centres and needs a permanent presence online rather than three weeks of exhibition.
The two are not mutually exclusive. An artist well represented by an agency also exhibits in galleries, and that is very often the best of both worlds.
Going further
The agency page explains how ARTDELION works. Artists who wish to be represented should first read the criteria for representation, then the application page. For a specific question about a work or an acquisition, contact is direct.