Watch the Hilarious Video That Art Dealer Joel Mesler Is Using to Debut His New East Hampton Gallery

The dealer and artist has created a gem of deadpan humor to announce his new Rental Gallery space.

The artist and dealer Joel Mesler outside his new East Hampton incarnation of Rental Gallery.
The artist and dealer Joel Mesler outside his new East Hampton incarnation of Rental Gallery.

Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there. I’m Andrew Goldstein, the editor of artnet News, and this is an article about a new video that the artist and dealer Joel Mesler just released to advertise his new Hamptons gallery. Why use a video to debut a new gallery? I’m glad you asked.

Let me tell you a secret. There’s no reason to create a video to debut your new gallery. Unless… you are trying to create a viral sensation with something so funny, so deadpan, so I-can’t-believe-he-did-that that it will endear you to your new well-heeled clientele and give Manhattanites a taste of what they’re missing.

A former Los Angeles dealer who rose to prominence in New York through his championing of market-stars-to-be at the now-defunct spaces Rental Gallery and Untitled, Mesler most recently partnered with the gallerist Zach Feuer on two Lower East Side galleries—Mesler/Feuer and Feuer/Mesler—as well as a satellite space in Hudson, New York, called Retrospective. As an artist in his own right, Mesler recently showed his tongue-in-cheek, self-satirizing paintings at NADA Miami Beach.

Here, in this promotional video, watch the dealer amble about, paint, grow a beard, hug his children, and receive some beautifully thrown shade from Gagosian’s Adam Cohen—an old friend of Mesler’s—who manages to praise and skewer him at the same time.

Do yourself a favor and enjoy the laid-back music, too.

The new iteration of Rental Gallery will open in East Hampton this Memorial Day weekend with a group show featuring some of the artists Mesler has championed over the years, including Henry Taylor, Jon Rafman, Rashid Johnson, Ridley Howard, and Jonas Wood.


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