[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-454742828.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tTwo artists have sued Manhattan art gallery The Hole, alleging roughly $50,000 in unpaid proceeds from sales of their artwork.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on July 16, artists Daniel Um and Nastaran Shahbazi say they provided multiple paintings and other artworks to The Hole for display and sale on consignment between 2024 and 2026. The artists allege that, despite receiving partial payments, they are still owed a combined total of nearly $50,000\u2014$28,975 to Um and $21,000 to Shahbazi.<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to the filing, when Um and Shahbazi sought payment from the gallery, they were told the business was financially strained and could not issue payments at that time. New York law requires consignment proceeds to remain the artist\u2019s property and prohibits galleries from using those funds for operating expenses. Artists\u2019 payments cannot be contingent on a gallery\u2019s other income, as Um and Shahbazi allege happened at The Hole.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201c[The Hole] did exactly what the statute forbids,\u201d Um and Shahbazi\u2019s suit alleges, claiming that the gallery sold their consigned artworks, collected the proceeds, and \u201cinstead of segregating and remitting those trust funds,\u201d used the money for rent, operating expenses, other creditors, and other artists, leaving the plaintiffs unpaid for more than a year.<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to the lawsuit, the artists agreed to pay The Hole a commission on sales of their work but did not agree to surrender nearly $50,000 in proceeds. The artists accuse the gallery of unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and violations of New York\u2019s Arts and Cultural Affairs Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tUm and Shahbazi\u2019s suit contends that The Hole\u2019s management repeatedly assured them that the outstanding payments would be made, telling them they would \u201cnever not pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
ARTnews<\/em> has contacted The Hole and the artists for comment. Jeff Kinkle of Kinkle Law, the artists\u2019 attorney, told ARTnews<\/em> that the pair believed the lawsuit \u201cspoke for itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe Hole was founded in 2010 by Kathy Grayson, a former director at Deitch Projects, in Manhattan\u2019s Bowery neighborhood. Grayson opened a second New York location in Tribeca in 2021, followed a year later by a large West Hollywood space, amid a wave of East Coast galleries expanding into Los Angeles. But a market contraction in 2023 reportedly hit the gallery hard, leaving it struggling to pay artists, workers, and rent.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe Los Angeles space was shuttered, while court records show financial troubles in New York as well: Landlords for The Hole\u2019s Bowery and Tribeca properties filed nonpayment complaints against the gallery\u2019s New York entities in summer 2025.<\/p>\n \n\tCourt filings allege that The Hole\u2019s Tribeca location accrued more than $120,000 in unpaid rent and unresolved real estate taxes over three years. A separate 2025 filing involving the Bowery location alleges more than $60,000 in unpaid rent and other charges under a lease agreement that runs through January 2031.<\/p>\n \n\tGrayson told the Art Newspaper<\/em> in April that \u201cwe are current with Bowery rent and paying off arrears for the Tribeca space, slowly but surely.\u201d Artists interviewed for the story, meanwhile, described longstanding issues with consignment and transparency at the gallery\u2019s New York locations. One artist who participated in a 2024 group exhibition at the Bowery location said a work had been sold at an unauthorized discount and that proceeds were paid more than a year after the sale, in several installments\u2014both claims the gallery confirmed.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a Reddit thread posted to r\/ContemporaryArt in April, users claiming to be artists warned others against working with the gallery, alleging that they had not received proceeds from sales of their artwork, and had discovered that one of their works had been sold only after seeing \u201cInstagram pics\u201d of it \u201cin a collector\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/new-york-gallery-the-hole-sued-by-artists-outstanding-payments-1234792800\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-454742828.jpg?w=1024″] Two artists have sued Manhattan art gallery The Hole, alleging roughly $50,000 in unpaid proceeds from sales of their artwork. In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on July 16, artists Daniel Um and Nastaran Shahbazi say they provided multiple paintings and other artworks to The Hole for display and sale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2054953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2054953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2054953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2054953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2054953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}