The Hole Gallery Sued Over Unpaid Back Rent
17April 9, 2026
The Hole, a New York City-based gallery run by founder Kathy Grayson, has closed its space in West Hollywood after being accused of rent non-payment in multiple court filings,the Art Newspaperreports.
Court filings dating back to 2024 allege thatThe Holeneglected to pay real estate taxes for several years; other records show that between July and September of 2025, landlords for both of The Hole’s Manhattan locations leveled the two entities with non-payment complaints. Overall,according toTAN, the filing complaints say that the Tribeca location owes over $120,000 in unpaid real estate tax and rent, and the Bowery location has been accused of owing over $60,000 in unpaid rent and additional charges.
A former employee, who worked at The Hole’s Los Angeles outpost in 2023 and 2024, characterized the institution to TAN as “financially unstable.”
“I’ve been here for 15 years and after two extra-successful years, sales were down significantly starting at the end of 2023,” Grayson said. “For everyone in our zone, not just for us… I’m recalibrating things here to focus on New York and getting everything stabilized again. The up can often be as destabilizing as the down.”
“We are current with Bowery rent and paying off arrears for the Tribeca space, slowly but surely,” she added. Kenny Schachter, in a 2025 Artnet column, wrote that The Hole had been accused of being delinquent in paying artists. Indeed, in 2019, Dallas-based artist Dan Lam sued the Hole and a matcha cafe that operated within the gallery. Lam accused the gallery of failing to reimburse her for sculptures sold during a 2018 exhibition. The artist also said that The Hole damaged some of her other work and failed to return unsold sculptures.