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