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An Article by DM (688 words, 4 min. read)
In the stillness of a gallery, where a painting should stand on its own dignity, a small colored dot often appears beneath the frame. Red, green, yellow. A gesture so minimal it seems harmless, yet it has the power to distort the entire atmosphere of an exhibition. These dots are presented as neutral information, yet they increasingly feel like tools of suggestion, quietly shaping perception before the artwork has even been fully seen.
The Red Dot as an Illusion of Triumph
The red dot was once simple. It meant an artwork had been sold, a genuine moment of connection between artist and collector. Today, it often carries a strange theatricality. In many spaces, the red dot appears less as a fact and more as a performance. It is placed to create urgency, to provoke desire, to imply that demand is already overwhelming. Sometimes it becomes a decorative lie, an attempt to convince visitors that success is unfolding in real time, even when the room remains untouched by true acquisition.
Some paintings are marked as sold even before the opening day, after private catalogs have been circulated to select collectors. In these cases, the red dot is placed in advance, not always as the result of a confirmed acquisition, but as a way to suggest that demand has already been secured. The exhibition begins under the impression that everything is moving quickly, that collectors have already chosen, that success is unfolding behind closed doors. The public enters a space where the narrative of sale seems partly arranged, and where reality can feel subtly directed rather than simply revealed.
The Confusion of Green and Yellow
Then come the other colors. Green dots, yellow dots, undefined signals presented without explanation. Reserved, pending, promised, perhaps nothing at all. These marks create an atmosphere of insider codes, where transparency disappears. The visitor is left with questions, surrounded by a system that seems designed more to impress than to inform.
The artwork, which should hold the mystery of its own, becomes trapped beneath a marketing cipher.
A Subtle Form of Manipulation
This practice may appear minor, yet it is deeply revealing. It reflects a market anxious to prove itself, a gallery culture that sometimes prefers the appearance of momentum over truth. The dot becomes less about the collector’s love and more about the gallery’s strategy.
The painting is no longer simply offered. It is staged within a commercial drama.
A Market Gesture That Imitates Success
These dots are not always placed to inform us. They are often placed to persuade. In certain exhibitions, the colored mark appears even when the artwork has not truly been pursued, when no collector has expressed real interest, when nothing has actually moved beyond speculation. The dot becomes a signal of invented momentum, a way of implying value through theater rather than through truth. It resembles the world of certain auctions, where headlines announce record sales while unsold lots quietly return to storage, masked by the language of triumph. The art market, like the auction room, sometimes prefers the appearance of victory over the honesty of reality. In this atmosphere, the painting is no longer allowed to speak first. It is surrounded by artificial cues meant to shape desire, and the viewer is invited not into an encounter with art, but into a staged illusion of demand.
The Damage Done to Artists
For artists, this is not harmless. It reduces years of labor, vision, solitude, and risk into a tiny symbol of transactional status. It pressures careers into performance metrics. It teaches emerging artists that value must be simulated before it is earned, that the illusion of success matters as much as success itself.
Such gestures erode the seriousness of art. They shift attention away from creation and toward manipulation.
The Public Is Not Blind
Collectors and visitors sense this choreography. They know when something feels manufactured. In the end, no colored dot can replace credibility.
Art does not need provocative marketing tricks to breathe. It needs honesty, respect, and spaces where works are allowed to exist without being turned into spectacle.
