Dealer David Schrader's Case For A More Fluid Art Market: 'Volume Begets Volume'

(MENAFN- USA Art News) New Secondary-Market Gallery Planned in New York as Dealers Bet on a Calmer, More Negotiated Market

A new secondary-market gallery is in the works in New York, backed by three seasoned figures: Marc Glimcher and Emmanuel Di Donna, alongside a third partner who says the timing reflects a market that has stopped sliding and is beginning to regain its footing.

The venture is still in its early stages, but the group's premise is clear: the mood in the trade has shifted from anxiety to cautious confidence, particularly on the resale side. After a couple of years defined by pullbacks and recalibration, the partners see a steadier backdrop that could support a focused, deliberately scaled operation.

Rather than attempting to emulate the sprawling footprints of legacy galleries, the team is positioning the new business as a“greenfield” start, built without the overhead and institutional sprawl that can weigh on older models. The goal, the partner said, is not to become a multi-location behemoth or“all things to all people,” but to apply their combined expertise to a narrower slice of the market where relationships, discretion, and access to rare material still drive outcomes.

That emphasis on discretion dovetails with another development reshaping the top end of the trade: the rise of private auctions, sometimes described within the industry as“dark” sales. These invitation-only formats gained traction during the Covid era, when the market needed new ways to manufacture momentum without the public theater of a packed salesroom. Their appeal, as described by the dealer, lies in a carefully engineered mix of privacy and deadline pressure: a short window to act, a curated selection of hard-to-source works, and the competitive charge of bidding against a small, qualified field.

In that sense, private auctions borrow a familiar logic from art fairs and gallery exhibitions: they create a moment. For consignors, the format can offer confidentiality and a controlled narrative around a work's availability. For buyers, it can feel like entry into a rarefied circle, with the added frisson of competition. The open question is sustainability. If too many such sales crowd the calendar, the sense of occasion that makes them effective could thin out.

Behind these tactical shifts sits a broader structural issue: margins. The art market has long been associated with high spreads and relatively low volume, but the dealer argues that a correctionary period tends to invite harder negotiation and more visible pressure on commissions. As transparency seeps into the business, and as buyers and sellers become more comfortable pushing for negotiated terms, the era of“oversized” margins may be harder to defend.

The result may not be a race to the bottom, but a move toward more consistent, businesslike margins, closer to what other trading industries accept as normal. Intermediaries, the dealer noted, have already absorbed some of the squeeze, while a market with fewer aggressive bidders has given both sides leverage to bargain.

For dealers, that creates a familiar choice: hold firm on margin and risk losing the deal, or accept a thinner spread in exchange for liquidity and the chance to build longer-term momentum. The dealer's view is that many clients ultimately value the ability to transact smoothly, especially when confidence is still rebuilding.

As for fears that easier resale could accelerate flipping and destabilize prices, the dealer sees the opposite dynamic right now. Rather than a surge in velocity, the market has become more traditional in taste and less enamored of the“hot new thing.” Buyers, he said, are behaving with more discipline, and truly strong works remain difficult to source - either because owners do not feel compelled to sell or because they are sufficiently capitalized to wait.

If anything, that scarcity has contributed to a slower, more selective market that now appears to be turning. The planned New York gallery is a bet that, in this next phase, expertise and focus will matter more than scale - and that the secondary market's renewed pragmatism can support a new kind of lean, high-touch dealership.

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