There are days I wonder if the gallery still matters. Not the business. The space itself. The white cube. The room with polished floors, careful lighting, controlled silence. I still believe in it. But I no longer believe it holds the same authority it once did.
The Indian contemporary art scene is brutal. Quietly brutal. People speak about community, support, dialogue. Behind that language is competition, positioning, survival. And yes, much of it is controlled by women. Strong women. Intelligent women. Ruthless women. Is that a good thing? I am still deciding.
Sometimes I think women brought emotional intelligence into the ecosystem. Sometimes I think they perfected the politics of exclusion. The art world likes to imagine itself progressive. It rarely is. It functions on access, proximity, favour, perception. The currency is social before it becomes financial.
The role of the gallerist has changed because the viewer has changed.
Attention has changed.
Speed has changed.
Earlier, a gallery could build an artist over ten years through patience, scholarship, museum placements, difficult conversations.
Now the pressure arrives instantly.
Visibility has become immediate.
Validation has become public.
Every exhibition enters the world already surrounded by images, opinions, captions, previews, speculation.
The white cube used to introduce meaning.
Now it often confirms meaning that has already circulated online.
Sometimes I feel the exhibition itself is the final paragraph of a conversation that began months earlier on Instagram, in WhatsApp groups, in podcasts, in collector dinners, in essays nobody fully reads but everybody references.
The gallery has become a culmination point.
A site of validation.
A physical stamp placed on an idea already moving through the bloodstream of culture.
That shift changes the responsibility of the gallerist.
You can no longer operate as a gatekeeper sitting behind taste and authority.
You have to listen more carefully.
You have to understand how viewers move emotionally, visually, psychologically.
Why they stop. Why they scroll. Why they buy. Why they pretend to care.
The balancing act becomes exhausting.
What is serious work?
What has commercial value?
Where do they meet?
Do they even need to meet?
Every gallerist lies when they say commerce does not affect programming.
Of course it does. Rent affects aesthetics. Salaries affect curatorial decisions. Collector relationships affect courage.
But cynicism alone is lazy.
Commercial success does not automatically make work shallow.
Difficulty does not automatically make work important.
The real challenge is maintaining long term vision inside short term noise.
Artists need emotional support now as much as representation.
Collectors want access, intimacy, immediacy.
Viewers want context before they enter the room.
And galleries are expected to be cultural spaces, media platforms, social clubs, archives, consultants, therapists and sales rooms at the same time.
Some days I miss slowness.
I miss uncertainty.
I miss when people stood in front of artworks longer than they stood in front of themselves.
But I also recognise something honest in this moment.
The hierarchy between institution, gallery and audience has cracked open.
People question more.
Younger viewers arrive informed.
Artists speak directly.
The white cube is less sacred now, and maybe that is healthy.
A gallery today cannot survive on intimidation.
It survives on relevance.
On trust.
On relationships that last longer than trends.
And perhaps that is the real role of the gallerist now.
To remain steady while everything around them performs urgency.
Reshma Chordia