Pop Smart - When galleries go bad

For several weeks now I’ve been hearing some troubling news about Nozoku Gallery, which opened in October 2006 in Castleberry Hill.

A number of artists told me about some disturbing occurrences following shows at Nozoku: unreturned paintings, damaged paintings, work the gallery claimed it had sold but that the artists had not been paid for. Many of the artists I heard complaints from lived out of town in Boston or Albuquerque and were having a hard time dealing with the gallery’s owner Nicole Zagrodny — now Nicole Cooper — via long distance. Several artists told me she’s been ducking calls and e-mails for months. Like many other artists I heard from, artist Pam Reynolds, who filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau over damaged work, said that once her paintings were in the gallery’s possession her phone calls and e-mails were ignored.

And now Cooper is out of business. Cooper, who has responded to my phone and e-mail inquiries in one terse e-mail, told me her landlord is selling the gallery space at 200 Walker St. She told me she “officially” closed the gallery this January. In an e-mail she sent me Jan. 4, she said that once her landlord returns her security deposit, she plans to use that to “take care of the financial obligations you inquired about.”

Though she hasn’t addressed specific complaints of damaged work, unreturned work or tardy payment, she told me that “we have every intention of paying the artists what is owed them.” She also said that artists who still have work at the gallery will be able to pick it up at the end of the month or she will ship it to them.

Matt Sesow, who is a full-time artist in Washington, D.C., and also shows in Atlanta at Alcove Gallery, is suing Cooper in Fulton County Small Claims Court for almost $3,000 for unreturned work. He told me it’s the first time he’s ever been “screwed over by a gallery.”

Mark Schoening, who had a show at the gallery in 2006, has been waiting for more than a year for Cooper to return work.

Jack O’Hearn, whose show I wrote about in June, is still waiting for four paintings to be returned to him from a show that ended in August. Florida-based Jeff Henriquez told me in a phone conversation that he’s had work go missing and some damaged. Even after driving up to Atlanta to confront Cooper and pick up his work, Cooper managed to avoid seeing him. Henriquez had to deal with her boyfriend. The whole thing sounds like a depressing high school psychodrama, but with money and professional reputations on the line.

I feel for the artists in this kind of situation, who often don’t have the resources or the money to fight back when a gallery keeps their work or withholds payment, a problem I’ve come across many times during my tenure as an art critic. It has become clear to me from the number of artists involved — six at last count — that something is very wrong here.

I hope Cooper follows through on her promises, but I will be checking in with the artists periodically to see what happens.