Carlos Fentanes

100 days 100 galleries; Day 20: Galería Fernando Pradilla, Madrid Spain

Carlos Fentanes

Opened at the end of 2001, the Fernando Pradilla Gallery aims to promote and disseminate contemporary art that is developed in Latin America and Spain, acting as a bridge of knowledge of the artistic expressions of both continents.

Carlos Fentanes (CF): Hello, I have a blog about galleries and their relationship with artists and I want to feature yous gallery, as an introduction how do you describe your gallery?

Galería Fernando Pradilla (GFP): nothing

That was a translation, I wrote it in Spanish in part because the gallery is in Spain and in part because I’m fluent in it but that didn’t matter because there were no answer.

After 20 galleries visited I can confirm that most of them don’t even read the DMs, around 80%, and I suppose that they don’t do sales over the web, they have their Instagram page because is part of the prerequisites for being an established gallery today, same as the website or Facebook. It is not to promote art, it is not for selling, it is not about artists either; they have all this just because. They don’t even know how to manage it.

I browsed their website and it confirmed what I already said: they don’t know how to do it and don’t want to learn: one of the pages of their site is about artists and when you click on any artist they don’t show anything just: “There are no content to show “, Do they not have anything to show of any of their artists? how come? what’s the purpose of this page then?

And as expected there’s no information about submission either I could say that this gallery is just for local artists, if you live in Madrid you can knock the door and try to see if you get lucky but not if you live in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian prairies.

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Carlos Fentanes

I’m an artist obsessed with the art market, ethics, money and all those material things that affect the making of art.

One response to “100 days 100 galleries; Day 20: Galería Fernando Pradilla, Madrid Spain”

  1. J. Standish Avatar
    J. Standish

    I’ve been buying art for 20 years and, while I’m no expert, I have a fair amount of knowledge on some of the quirks and risks that are ever-present when purchasing a piece of art. Having lived in Paris, NYC and Los Angeles, I realize and acknowledge that the art world is an industry with less standardization and structure (for example, they required 100% of the payment upfront, which I was perfectly happy to accommodate). As such, the reputations of galleries and buyers are very important. All of that said, I was shocked at the unprofessionalism and dishonesty in working with this gallery and their owner, Fernando Pradilla. I had a number of email threads and phone calls with him and his staff. Regardless, we agreed on a price for a piece of art, in writing, and I subsequently followed up, in writing, to let them know that I will buy the piece. They confirmed the sale to me, again, in writing. I requested shipping information and they provided me with a price quote. This is where it went downhill. I received an email from them with a subject line: “News.” The email stated: “Unfortunately the Marcos López’ work ‘La Cantina: Il Piccolo Vapore’ has already been sold to other collectors.” There was no apology nor further explanation. Again, reputation is very important in the world of art and I would caution anyone who engages with this gallery to run in the other direction. I’m happy to provide additional information and emails regarding my exchange with the gallery.

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