036 — Make retail retail again. The art world is not so kumbaya. Girls just want to have fun and build equity. 

DISPASSION is a newsletter about art, digital media, and emotional detachment produced by NOR RESEARCH STUDIO.

EUPHEMISMS

Teleprompters in the spotlight. Marina Abramović sucks. Chun Li grows a third leg. Spanish art dealer experiences inquisition. Remembering Marina Vishmidt. Hyperallergic thinks you’re a fool. Artist and curator tell Boston real estate conglomerate to push rocks.

INTERVIEWS

BLESSING GREER MATHURIN 

I first met Blessing Greer Mathurin in 2023 at a Central Server Works opening shortly before she started her independent curatorial project, Bihch Dealership. Greer Mathurin and I immediately connected and dished about art world power dynamics, especially our struggles to maintain intellectual integrity in an industry that seems hell bent on keeping art as thoughtless as possible. I caught up with her in the days after her recent show at Kwame Adusei to discuss her life and projects.  

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Let’s start by talking about Bihch. What is it?

Bihch Dealership — pronounced “beesh” — is my curatorial project. Each exhibition tries to connect disparate themes and create dialog with and through the marketplace. The most recent exhibition, A FIELD OF RUINS WHERE HIBISCUS BLOOMS, was held at designer Kwame Adusei’s storefront in West Hollywood. For that exhibition, I wanted to compare the fashion retail and showroom format to the gallery space and not so subtly hit at the obvious connections between each as spaces that are ultimately designed to sell merchandise.  

From a wider view, Bihch is a vehicle for selling artwork and organizing conceptually driven group shows. I also try to center emerging artists and nontraditional artists, placing their work alongside artists who are more established in hopes of facilitating community. This project is supported by my friend and collaborator Matthew Holmes.

Where does the name come from? 

The name is a reference to an experience I had working as an assistant to a gallerist. I went to a gallery for her and encountered a man there I had never met. When I introduced myself as her assistant, he was like, “Oh, tell that bitch to come over here.” I just remember thinking “I don’t know you, I haven’t talked to the artist about you, and I don’t know your relationship with her.” His demand just caught me off guard. 

That man and the memory of that experience has stuck with me for a long time. I eventually realized people are going to see me as bitch anyway, so I’m hopping in front of the name and being subversive with it. Poking fun at the situation while also not poking fun at it. I also think the way people read and pronounce the name kind of says more about them and the permissions they give themselves than it says about me.

But, yeah, he gave me this really great name. I’m really appreciative of that. I also realized that in the arts we’re all like kumbaya, but the vibe is not really kumbaya. A big part of Bihch as a curatorial project is agency and self-determination. I want to advocate for myself and my artists, so there needs to be an understanding that dialogue and feedback are on the table. 

From there, the artists I curate into the shows choose what they want to sell and what they don't want to sell. They can consult with me about pricing. And because the business model doesn’t have much overhead that crushes me into making self-compromising decisions, I try to collaborate with people who aren’t going to call me a bitch or force me into being a bitch. The goal is agency protecting agency.

Say more about this kumbaya thing.

I think all artists and art workers have to contend with the art market as a system. 

Before I started Bihch, I was working at all these different cultural spaces with a bunch of lovely people, but the systems in place didn't allow for the amount of care I expected. Everyone was overwhelmed with the functions of business, which is valid and totally reasonable. But I also saw people making these disconnected declarations of support and affirmation. 

This all became apparent to me when I went through a deeply traumatic experience that I didn’t feel comfortable articulating or explaining to my peers. I believe people noticed something was off, but rather than someone approaching me with concern and saying, “Oh, you’re not acting like yourself,” it became an opportunity to scrutinize my performance. Over time, it felt like this difficult period was used as a justification to reduce staff in an organization already struggling to meet its commitments. Rather than addressing systemic issues, it seemed like cutting roles became a survival tactic.

For me, this experience highlights a broader problem. It’s not about an individual’s failure — it’s about an overworked system where the appearance of productivity and surface-level rapport are often valued over genuine productivity and the cultivation of self-sustaining networks.

So in a way, I felt forced to start Bihch, because I wanted to try to figure out how I could remedy these systemic problems without asking for permission but for partnership.

With all those experiences in mind, how do you decide that you want to work with somebody?

When it comes to deciding if I want to work with someone, it’s really intuitive. When I was younger, I wanted to work with brands, people, and organizations because of their mission statement or declared ethos. But I soon learned that I prefer seeing their commitment to doing meaningful work and how that plays out in their operation. 

I also take note of how I feel when I work with collaborators and track if my excitement stays throughout the project. This shift from big ideas to personal experiences also allowed me to see that some missions are so big that they are unrealistic. Instead of acknowledging that reality, people start to overpromise and ignore the fact that they lack capacity and may even be perpetuating the status quo that their declared mission is allegedly against. 

They think “this is my baby” instead of “maybe I’m not the person who can do this.” So I try to look for the people who aren’t overpromising and whose work and perspective feels compatible with mine.

You describe Bihch as a “dealership.” I think I resisted that word when we first started chatting about the project, but now I appreciate how much it levels the dialogue about money and power in the marketplace. Something about the transparency of acknowledging that sales do and must occur seems to agitate the mission statement crowd. 

Where we’re at right now, art doesn't arise in a situation without the market, which makes the fantasy that art can be separated from capitalism all the more potent. That’s why I want Bihch to function as a hybrid between a gallery, agency, and curatorial project. 

Among artists, there’s a clear understanding that if you’re doing something you love — and others love it too — it’s natural to want to be paid for it. Especially when you’re skilled, dedicated, and investing significant time and energy into your work.

It makes sense that artists seek tangible income from their practice. We shouldn’t cling to this romantic notion that artists create solely for the sake of creating. While many will continue making art and support art regardless, that’s all the more reason to ensure they’re in a position to earn a living from it.

Alongside that marketplace piece, I want Bihch to avoid putting up exhibitions that reiterate antiquated philosophies. I’d rather find ways to include artists and artwork that create new philosophies or space to have conversations that have yet to receive public attention. At that juncture is the intersection of my artistic practice and those of the artists I work with. There is no use denying that it takes money — and lots of it — to make collaboration possible. So I’d rather just be forward about it. I’m a dealership. It takes money to sustain thought and dialog. There also needs to be some semblance of confident agency so that those artworks retain their value and authenticity. I will happily attempt to create that space for myself and the artist I show.

And you’ve sold work. How do you think that your perspective has changed since you realized that selling work is possible, as opposed to just like this activity that people fantasize about? 

Selling my first piece showed me how meaningful it is for an artist to be paid for their work. It’s not like waiting for a grant — it’s seeing your love for the work supported by others. I’ve learned that selling is about connecting the right people with the right piece. I want to place work with collectors who really understand and appreciate it.

Seeing that process repeat itself taught me to seek the connection between the person who buys a piece and the person who made it. Taking everything into account, That way, the relationship feels supportive beyond the transaction. 

For one of the pieces that sold during the Adusei show, the artist and buyer were both Black femme artists. So the experience was fun all the way around, like we were doing this for each other. I want the work to exist as conduit for sustained community and connection. I see showing the work as investing in their practice and putting in the eyeline of support.

When I approach artists to collaborate through Bihch, I emphasize the reason why I started a dealership is because I want to show works in an environment where I don’t have to speak in jargon. I want other creatives and other marginalized identities to walk into the space and know that we have a mutual understanding, and a space to come to their own conclusions.

And how was working with Kwame Adusei, as both a person but also the designer and his brand, as opposed to a rarified art institution? 

It was super fun. Fashion as an industry moves quickly, so the organizing behind the show went super fast — especially compared to the projects I’ve done at nonprofits and galleries that run themselves like museums. 

It’s nice to have that energy propelling a project, especially when you’re collaborating with a group of people to produce something together. Because of that quickness, I was able to get right into the rationale behind the show without getting into the weeds of an institutionalized mission statement. Yes, we had the business-to-business conversation, but it was clear from the speed at which we were able to make decisions that there was an existing community and dialogue the artists and Adusei were able to latch onto without much introduction. And that’s why I wanted their work with and in his space.

From there, because my projects tend to focus on the humanistic qualities of work, this project felt like a natural extension of an earlier exhibition Black Pacifica (2024), leaning more toward the experiences of Black women or femmes. Adusei is a Black designer from Ghana, and his designs reflect a post-colonial Black experience that is queer, future-oriented, and deeply invested in sustainability. The connection felt organic, offering a chance to explore the nuances and continuity of the Black body, as well as the consideration for both the body and the earth in his designs. Presenting their work and his in conversation allows them to feel fluid and connective. 

Something that I’ve recognized over time is that many people don’t recognize or value the labor that goes into making experiences legible. A curator is often tasked with coming up with the basic terms of engagement and creating a superstructure or world where viewers can begin to develop their own perspective in response to the material. But I also feel that artists like Arthur Jafa and Sondra Perry have made it quite clear that there is an unspoken, institutionally driven expectation that Black people do this emotional labor without compensation.  

That’s what pushed me to do my own thing. It’s one thing to explain the work and why it’s presented a certain way, but it’s another to be asked to present a version of myself that’s more “palatable” — one that either emphasizes or downplays my identity to fit a narrative for an audience that doesn’t understand what’s really happening in the work or behind the scenes. After going through that so many times, it just feels redundant.

I write about the shows not to explain, but to enhance and make connections. Approaching it this way feels more authentic, and it’s fulfilling when the artists feel truly seen. Having a humanistic angle first and then connecting with shared and individual histories feels productive. Using the exhibition to create history with one another feels connective rather than prescriptive.

I feel that in those situations we’re often forced to ask permission to work. In the worst cases, we’re asking for permission to work for free. 

That’s been a lot of my experience. Just like, asking for permission. It began to feel like a moving goalpost. This ties back to the overpromising as well. People would say, “If you do this, this, and that, then I’ll help you.” But once you’ve been made to feel undervalued, you realize you’re wasting your time. It’s a harsh reality check, especially when you’re depending on those career opportunities to succeed. 

I started to just take on independent projects and will them into being with the support of my community of collaborators. I started learning on the go and accepting that no one was going to give me an opportunity, even if I was in the room, had shown interest, and proven my capability. I had to take my agency and stand up for myself and risk looking like a bitch.

All of this is made worse by the reality that Black women have a certain cache among nonprofit arts and culture institutions that makes them ideal figureheads — someone the institution can point toward and say, “Oh, we have someone like that working here.” Trying to explain that experience to someone who has never been hired because of their skin color is difficult because the assumption is that these faux affirmative action hires are beneficial to Black people.  

It’s an unseen level of work that goes also uncompensated. As a dark-skinned woman, and having been the only dark-skinned woman in the room, there have been so many situations where I’m not getting sufficiently compensated for my work while my presence is absolutely vital to a project about, say, Black experience, that would otherwise have no Black person attached to it. In those compromising situations, I’ve felt like any demand was unreasonable — especially when I was one of the few people in the room and who could easily be removed from it. 

Things get especially tricky when people have built up rigidity in their dreams and projects and they reject feedback because it interferes with their ability to believe in its viability. For someone like me, if I can improve on my dream, if someone knows something that can help me improve or materialize my dream, I’m going to try to take that into account. I want to be open and flexible about my dream. I don’t want to be a dictator. 

Part of me wants to say that’s because it‘s your own dream. People who fall into that rigid state don’t have their own dream. They have an idea they’ve built on someone else’s dream and they compare their accomplishments to that original dream without recognizing it’s impossible to replicate. This is one of the fundamental issues with whiteness — people believe they should be able to have what their peers have even while we’re living through an era where it’s becoming less and less possible to mobilize independently. 

Everyone wants to support the marginalized in theory. Everyone wants to stand up for the little guy. But frequently the supportive language and grandstanding about the greater good comes up against the reality that no one is listening to the voices in the room that are asking for support. There are actually quite simple things you can do to support an emerging artist or creator like me. You can just be nice to me. Or, you can create a position or opportunity that allows me to take care of myself rather than having to beg for permission each step along the way. 

That’s why agency is so important. As it stands, when someone like me makes even subtle requests to be heard or supported, we’re treated like threats.  Being on the receiving end of experiences where I’m maligned for exerting my agency has also influenced how I structure Bihch and my relationships with the artists I support. For example, I don't think I’m ever going to sign artists. I prefer the idea of an artist doing a show or a private commission without feeling like they’re obligated to produce something else right behind it.

Some of that is about pricing and scale, right? Your situation would be different if you had high overhead, which you’re actively avoiding. But I think that’s smarter because you’re skipping over the part of the market where there are many players trying to make astronomical sums and instead focus on sustainable, long-term growth. 

At the heart of it all, I don’t think astronomical prices make a work more or less valuable. It’s cheesy, but for me value is subjective, and I think the value of a work relies more on the connection between the people who are taking it into its next space, its next story. I’m thankful to be part of that process and to help steward art along its journey. I receive my feelings of success when the pieces proliferate among the right people. The money just allows me and the artists I collaborate with to continue our work.

— AFTERS —

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— FIN —

BLESSING GREER MATHURIN is an art worker, curator, and founder of Bihch Dealership, a curatorial project and emerging art dealership in Los Angeles.

INTERVIEWS is column that hosts dialogues between artists, curators, and creative thinkers.

NOR RESEARCH STUDIO is a design research studio that develops didactic media, exhibitions, publications, and other forms of intellectual property for artists, nonprofits, and creative businesses.