amny.com47%
Artists sue Bowery art gallery The Hole, alleging it sold $50K of their work and didn’t pay them 42%
By Isabella Gallo57%
7/17/2026, 9:00:33 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Availability Heuristic, and Unattributed Quote, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 40.4% saturation with 233 hits. Analysis detected 1,475 faulty-reasoning hits from 577 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 46.4% and a BS Rank of 42% (10,451 of 17,923 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 58.30% of the article peer group.
Two artists have sued Bowery -based art gallery The Hole over accusations that the showroom allegedly deprived them of nearly $50,000 in sales from their artwork.
Contemporary artists Daniel Um and Nastaran Shahbazi said they delivered multiple paintings and other fine artworks to The Hole for display and sale on consignment between 2024 and 2026.
While they were paid some of what they were owed, the pair alleges that The Hole’s own books show the two are collectively short about $50,000: Um is owed $28,975, and Shahbazi is owed $21,000.
When they repeatedly asked to be paid, according to the case, Um and Shahbazi said they were told by The Hole’s management that the gallery’s overall business was suffering, forcing the showroom to delay payments to the pair it owed.
That’s illegal under New York law, as consignment proceeds are the artist’s money only and can never become the gallery’s property or be placed in its general account and used to cover operating expenses, as Um and Shahbazi allege The Hole was doing.
By law, an artist’s consignment payment must never be dependent on a gallery’s other income.
“[The Hole] did exactly what the statute forbids,” reads Um and Shahbazi’s suit, filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“They sold the artists’ consigned artworks, collected the proceeds, and—instead of segregating and remitting those trust funds … commingled or diverted the proceeds and used available gallery funds to pay the gallery’s rent, operating expenses, other creditors, and other artists, leaving [Um and Shahbazi] unpaid for well over a year.”
While the artists agreed to give The Hole a small commission from the sale of their work, according to the lawsuit, they did not agree to give up anywhere near $50,000 of their earnings.
The artists charged the gallery with unjust enrichment and breach of contract alongside violations of the state’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Law.
The Hole did not respond to amNewYork’s request for comment.
The artists’ lawyer, Jeff Kinkle of art law firm Kinkle Law , told amNewYork that the pair felt the suit “spoke for itself” when asked for comment.
Um and Shahbazi’s suit alleges that The Hole and its owner have repeatedly acknowledged that they owe the pair tens of thousands of dollars and promised to pay it — repeatedly assuring them that they’d “never not pay” the artists — but still have not.
It’s not the first time The Hole’s been accused of not paying its artists.
Reporting earlier this year from The Art Newspaper shows multiple artists accusing the gallery of not paying them as it experienced financial strife, like failing to pay rent across its three locations - two in downtown Manhattan and one in Los Angeles.
And, a Reddit thread under r/ContemporaryArt shows a slew of artists warning others away from working with the gallery, saying they also weren’t paid when the showroom sold their work.
“Myself and at least three other repped artists from the pre 2024 era were owed amounts in the six figures each,” one Reddit user alleged.
“They have been cooking their books for many years.
Crooked bookkeeping pure and simple.
Selling work and not reporting it to the artists.
Finding out via Instagram pics of your work in a collector's home.”
Um and Shahbazi are seeking at least the nearly $50,000 they are owed, along with additional punitive damages.
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