The Muse

Midday

When Myrte arrived, the gallery was still closed to the public. The midday sun had a hard time shining through the ultra-violet filter of the windows, painting the gallery in a heavy, cool light. Pictures and statues were positioned perfectly beneath a heavy scent of unpacked card boxes. The walls were covered flawlessly in fresh white paint, and the light of the lamps shone perfectly onto the pieces of art. Next to every object was a description of the artist and the price the piece sells for.

Myrte was a slim, blonde woman in her late thirties. She already suffered from a few premature crow’s feet. Too often Myrte had fleeting relationships, but she never let a man be part of her life. Emotions cause more stress which someone, as focused on their profession, does not need. She was of average build, and her looks suited the business she worked in. Although she was almost underweight, her blood pressure was slightly too high. On autumn days like these, this causes her a headache. Like so many in the business of art mediation, Myrte was self-employed and fought for her income with art projects. She was especially well known for her high selling numbers.

She looked at her work and was very satisfied. Every three months when she was ordered to be in the Bavarian town of Ludwigsstadt for the organisation of an exhibition, the gallery looked like this. She was already working in this sector for more than seven years and, although her organisation is perfect every time, she always felt like it is her first day of work. Every supplier had another concept, and every artist was a special case. Not forgetting every gallerist had a different business strategy. She only seldomly met Mr Benner, the owner of this art gallery.

The gallery was located close to the posh museum quarter in Munich and parking in the city centre was almost impossible. For this reason, Myrte did not have another chance but to take the public transport and to drag all her maps and her laptop around with her.

She did not see Mr Brenner very often, and his office was only open for four hours in the midday. He was said to be eccentric. In Munich, costs for businessmen always increased, and purchases were very hard to estimate, primarily because of the competition of the internet.

The following evening, they wanted to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the gallery and invited a lot of prominences. The artists they picked for this exhibition were, in Myrte’s opinion, a lot of philistines but their art was cheap and probably easy to sell. Good artists are best off in museums and pinacothecas and accordingly very expensive. During the last four weeks, Myrte spent a lot of time in marketing and managed to increase the publicity of the gallery and of the project which she was leading.

The main problem she faced with these newcomers was that they, most of the time, tried to take over her role in discussing with potential clients and thus are stealing her provision. Meetings ending in exchanging business cards or looking for websites of artists became a hurdle for the artist themselves. For Myrte, they were no artist but businessmen who spend their free time creating art.

Spiritual paintings, experiences made during rehab or people who, after not succeeding in their profession, are looking for a new job and think a one-use art set can make them a name in the art scene. Those were the most common backgrounds of the artists at Myrtes exhibition. She had to decline others who already made themselves a name as a fortune teller, junkie or a case for social services. Before taking on a new artist, she had to spend a lot of time on the internet, looking for non-existent galleries or forgeries of honours or titles.

For Myrte, it was a wild mixture, but they could pay better than most of the invited guests. She called this concept “New Art Evolution”, trying to bring a flair of New York into this scenario.

Investing in art survives on repeated mediation of already existing pieces and only seldomly on new art. But many do not understand this concept.

Myrtes strategy proved itself before, and she was sure she could hold a vernissage and come out of it with a slight plus in profit. After surviving this evening, she would treat herself to a break. She did not have a holiday in two years, and she could feel it. Sometimes, her back was in a lot of pain, and her nerves were shattered. You could say Myrtes mood shifted rather quickly these days.

She turned the lights on and admired her work again. She opened the door to get some refreshment, and the cool air flooded the room.

In Bavaria, the most significant art trade is limited to a very narrow circle. Only every now and then new artists are taken on, and vendors are mostly picked from the families of current members of this close group. Nevertheless, Myrte did not give up trying to get into these groups. However, as a woman with foreign roots, she did not think it would be very likely.

At this time, mostly the newly rich or tourists purchased art. No one had a particular background in art, nor did they value investing in art very much. Unfortunately, people who offer art for this kind of exhibition are only good amateurs. On the following evening, there were only two trained artists present and those who can pay the entrance fee, as well as an artist invited by the owner of the gallery.

Myrte was already bored of their go-to comments like “Maybe it is because I do not have a qualification in it …” etc. Once, she lost her temper and simply said to her potential art buyers that she hopes she does not apply for a job as a brain surgent with such an attitude. Primarily because of the eight years she already spent at university, she thought the trivialisation of education to be mainly negative.

She looked through her Blog where all the recent notifications in which she was involved were listed. Some Blogger had negative feedback regarding this project and called Myrte an exploiter of the poor artists. However, as Myrte already stated in a prior interview, artists had to prove themselves to gain the trust of agents and customers. Looking closer, she had to notice that these negative bloggers vainly tried to make themselves a name in the art industry themselves. Criticism like theirs was likely to be an attempt to create trustees and patrons, both of which Myrte saw as rather impossible.

In general, it is not possible that every offered art piece will find a new home and the costs had to be covered by someone. However, she was happy because her video talking about this topic had more views than the articles of these bloggers.

She turned the coffee machine in her office on, and the room was flooded with the noise of running engines grinding coffee beans.

Myrte checked the guest list and printed it out to place it on the desk at the entrance area. Next to every name, the name of their company and their profession was noted. This was important for her and her colleagues as these references show the possibility of the guest to buy an artwork. A star next to a name means this person made a purchase before and a moon indicates an abonnement of her catalogue. This catalogue of already mediated art pieces was positioned for anyone interested in it. Until now, she could always mediate an older piece again, which made the investment in art profitable for clients.

Art was sold for many different reasons. Sometimes, a buyer was not rich enough anymore and had to sell the art, or the owner died. There are a lot of reasons for a new profitable mediation for the vendor, resulting in a lucrative business for Myrte as well.

For the following evening, Myrte expected it to be busy; however she knew that her risky concept could go wrong as well. Still, Mr Brenner was very convinced of this idea. He asked his assistant to set up the contracts and mentioned several times how much he liked her concept. Myrte had to pay special attention to mediating the art piece of a guest artist. In her opinion, this artist was more of a pseudo prominence. She called herself Honourable Sophie as if such title ever existed. Myrte was sure that the art piece was bought and in case the Honourable’s name really was Sophie; it would not only be a surprise but a wonder.

Honourable was a lower title of nobility in the United Kingdom and its colonies. The art piece was a painting which, in Myrtes opinion, had too much orange paint on it. Other than orange colour, there were hints of carmine, sepia and anthracite. Most of the time this is a coincidence or a reasonable attempt to copy Francis Bacon’s usage of a scraper. The painting was nothing unusual for Myrte, but she had to admit it was striking. Part of this distinctiveness of the artwork was the imagined meaning by the artist and the recommendation of the commissioner.

A hairy man knocked on the still-open door. Myrte went from the office into the cool room and saw the man at the door. His yellow T-shirt was not very flattering for his round stomach and left an undesirable gap where the hairy beginning of his stomach was visible. Black trousers combined with a clipboard let her assume it was a deliverer.

Myrte pushed the chair at the door out of the way.

“Can I help you?”

“I am here to deliver the glasses and bottles for the reception”. Myrte secretively judged by his accent that this was the only phrase he knew in this language. For this reason, she held her index finger up and rotated it to her left side, where the catering kitchen will be arranged. She received a text message, which, on days like these, did not mean good news. The cabaret artist will be substituted by his teacher, who is a performance artist.

Just as the deliverer walks off into the direction of the kitchen, Theodor came to the door. Theodor belonged to the group of people that can be described in one word: Drama.

Under a mass of decorative cotton shawls, Theodor wanted to bring to mind that it was really hard for him and it was costly for him to get to this place. Furthermore, he stated that as an employee, he would not be affordable, however as a freelancer Myrte would get more than a good price. Myrte knew how to get her expectations across, and Theodor was very imaginative in implementing them. A cold wind accompanied him through the entrance door, and Myrte shivered.

Drama

“Theodor, what a busy bee you are.” Three blown kisses sealed the foreplay. He was barely taller than 1,60 m, and his five-centimetre heels in the style of the 70s did not help in making him look taller. A green beret covered his right side of his small head and his dark hair was completely straight and brushed to the left. He liked to use this hat to claim his family is French, as the Italian roots of his family were not artistic enough for him. Underneath the shawls a half-opened jumper in moss green became visible, perfectly matching his dark tartan trousers which he bought in Scotland. Out of his over-sized bag he pulled a folder with the label “Brenner birthday exhibition”.

“I had to work the whole evening yesterday, but the contracts are in order and checked now. Two attendees did not pay their entrance fee yet, and at least two will want their money back.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dear poor people, canny savers and lawyers are not good customers, and you should know that by now. Wolfgang Hartmann is, with the work that he does, not even able to pay for the luxury he treats himself to and after the trouble he made to complete a transaction in the last second, I heard all the alarm bells go off in my head. Theodor waved his hand and the map in the other hand around to create a more dramatic effect.

“The woman I never remember the name of”, after a short break he continued: “Does not matter. I saw her website, and she copies the African phase of Modigliani so shamelessly. We should definitely talk about plagiarism. So? The money withdrawal was declined and, although a friend of hers transferred us the money, she refuses to cover the bank charges. The account or the name of her account she listed was wrong. Very smart, right?” Myrte laughed and walked through the empty gallery to the office while the deliverer once again ran with his trolley into the door.

“She either pays at the entrance in cash or you shove her the abominableness pieces under her arm and abandon her.” Myrte raised her voice: “I will hold you responsible for every damage on this door.”

She did hear the following grumble of the deliverer but decided to ignore it.

In his obsequious position, Theodor followed her like a lapdog and showed the door to the deliverer, to make the complaint obvious.

“You did a good job with this exhibition.” His head turned in every direction, and his not particular small nose nodded several times to show his approval.

“Oh, dear!” He put his free hand onto his chest as if he was in shock. With wide opened eyes, he moved his hand and pointed his finger at the five art pieces which were presented at the pedestals.

“Did she have to make five attempts to get the form of these right? I would have told her after the first one that she should not use clay.” He laughed.