{"id":170359,"date":"2025-12-02T03:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/170359\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T03:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:39:08","slug":"jack-shainman-gallery-blames-odili-donald-odita-for-sluggish-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/170359\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Shainman Gallery Blames Odili Donald Odita for ‘Sluggish Sales’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJack Shainman Gallery<\/a> has responded at length to a lawsuit brought by artist Odili Donald Odita<\/a>, who previously sued the New York gallery, alleging that it wouldn\u2019t return his artworks to him.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn October, Odita, an artist whose work has appeared in exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, claimed that those artworks were worth $1.12 million. But in a filing from late November, Jack Shainman Gallery said that the gallery has far less inventory than the artist claimed and alleged that Odita still owed the gallery money for production costs.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe gallery had previously staged eight exhibitions for Odita, a longtime fixture on its roster until recently. The artist, who was born in Nigeria and is now based in Philadelphia, recently painted the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his lawsuit, Odita said the gallery had paid him a monthly amount starting in 2016. He said he was paid $14,000 monthly at the time and that the gallery stopped paying him in 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tJack Shainman Gallery said in its filing that it initially undertook this payment structure because \u201cOdita claimed that he was living beyond his means.\u201d The gallery said it kept raising Odita\u2019s monthly stipend until 2024, at which point the artist had been given $586,000 in loans by the gallery.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat amount, Jack Shainman Gallery said, was an \u201cunsustainable level in light of what had become sluggish sales of Odita\u2019s artworks.\u201d According to the filing, Odita sought to raise his prices by 160 percent, even though the gallery recommended no more than 20 percent.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe market was great up to a certain point,\u201d Elisabeth Sann, a senior director at Jack Shainman Gallery, told ARTnews. \u201cThe market supported the increases in monthly payments. We really try to be supportive as possible of our artists.\u201d She added that this was a \u201cunique situation\u201d within the gallery, and that \u201cnone of his other galleries were providing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe pay our artists in completed sales,\u201d Sann said, referring to the stipend as \u201cadvance against future sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe gallery claimed it had the right to \u201cretain\u201d five works by Odita. Those works, allegedly valued at $650,000, were consigned in 2024 by Jack Shainman Gallery to David Kordansky, which also represents the artist. (Sann said this was normal for when a Shainman-represented artist also signs with another entity; David Kordansky began representing Odita in 2022.) On November 9, 2025, the gallery allegedly released those works to Odita by \u201coral agreement,\u201d but that he still must repay his loans. Those loans, the gallery said, are worth just over $292, 000.<\/p>\n

\n\tOdita\u2019s lawsuit claimed that Jack Shainman Gallery\u2019s accounting was \u201cextremely suspect.\u201d Jack Shainman Gallery said in its November filing that Odita had a habit of \u201cdisputing financial statements again and again no matter that they had been reviewed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA lawyer for Odita declined to comment on Jack Shainman Gallery\u2019s counterclaims.<\/p>\n

\n\tSann said that Odita\u2019s lawsuit had come as a surprise to the gallery, which was \u201cvery close to coming to an agreement\u201d with the artist prior to his filing. \u201cIt just feels a little like we\u2019re being punished for being generous,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Shainman Gallery has responded at length to a lawsuit brought by artist Odili Donald Odita, who previously…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,94142,94143],"class_list":{"0":"post-170359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-jack-shainman-gallery","17":"tag-odili-donald-odita"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}