Since August, a dozen artists have banded together to make sense of misconduct by Lower East Side-based Thierry Goldberg Gallery, which has debuted top talents like Naudline Pierre, Tschabalala Self, and Louis Fratino since opening in 2007. The aggrieved artists allege that director Ron Segev violated their consignment agreements by withholding tens of thousands of dollars in payments, plus dozens of artworks.

Their claims date between 2021 and 2024. All six artists I spoke with consider it futile to pursue legal action for their funds. They don’t think Segev has the funds to make them whole, due to the down market. Only two of those six artists would go on the record, for fear of retribution from Segev—and the wider art world, where handshake agreements and gray areas abound.

The artists I spoke with all had their first New York solo shows with Thierry Goldberg, after the gallery contacted them via Instagram. Some artists enjoyed good working relationships before trouble began. Others were stiffed for works Segev sold straight away.

Nicolas Lambelet Coleman at Thierry Goldberg in 2023. Photo: Nicolas Lambelet Coleman.

North Carolina-based Nicolas Lambelet Coleman, a recent graduate of Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock Senegal residency, considered his May 2023 gallery debut a success. “I was paid promptly for approximately eleven sold works,” Coleman explained via email. “Later that year, I participated in a group show at the gallery where one work was sold. I was again paid on time.”

Coleman consigned four works to show with Thierry Goldberg at a Mexico City art fair in February 2024, but the gallery dropped out due to costs. Soon enough, Coleman learned not from Segev, but a collector, that one of those four works had been bought. Coleman contacted Segev, and got paid.

Two months later, the gallery gave him a solo booth at Expo Chicago, and sold five works. Coleman got a text from a collector saying one work had been delivered on May 13. But, when Segev paid him for two works on May 21, it didn’t include the piece in question. Coleman inquired further, and secured payment. His compensation for the other two pieces that sold remains outstanding.

Nicolas Lambelet Coleman at Thierry Goldberg. Photo: Nicolas Lambelet Coleman.

In March 2023, Thierry Goldberg hosted an online solo show for Uganda-based Bwambale Wesely, who shipped 10 works to New York at Segev’s request. Four works sold. Segev slowly paid.

Some of the six remaining works, which Wesely had consigned for a year, appeared in Thierry Goldberg’s “Friends and Family” group show in July 2023. None sold. Segev considered showing them at London’s 1-54 fair, but didn’t participate. This September, he emailed Wesely requesting new works for a group show, which went from being three artists to one—and from in-person to online. Unbeknownst to Wesely, the gallery had shuttered, unannounced.

Bwambale Wesely, Two Sisters (2023). Photo: Bwambale Wesely.

Another artist had confronted Segev months prior about a $7,000 payment. In August, after several months without a response from Segev, that artist convened the gallery roster in a group chat. Until then, each artist had thought they were the only ones experiencing such behavior.

That organizing artist advised Wesely not to send any more work to New York. When Segev said he had a collector interested in a piece from his online show, Wesely insisted he had to get paid before shipping it. Sure enough, Segev stopped responding shortly after.

Thierry Goldberg has not answered requests for comment. In fact, the gallery took down its website and Instagram after the first inquiry. “There’s no way I can communicate with him anymore, because I’ve sent so many emails,” Wesely lamented over the phone. Segev still has his six artworks.

“Lay of the Land” by Sally Kindberg at Thierry Goldberg in September 2022. Photo: Vittoria Benzine.

Although these artists have given up hope of their own recompense, they’ve learned the value of sticking together—giving and heeding honest advice, no matter how competitive the game might get. Platforms like How’s My Dealing? could prove useful in this regard. Wesely recommended that artists work with galleries based near where they live. Coleman suggested galleries should use escrow accounts for more fair payment systems—and that collectors should communicate directly with the artists they support, since that’s how he and several other artists found out they’d sold works in the first place.

Coleman also said galleries should be more transparent with their artists. But, as the artist behind the group chat told me, “their excuse would be that you can’t just have transparency in the art market, because then there’s no such thing as the ability for a gallery to control the market of the artists they work with.”