New York Gallery The Hole Sued Over Nonpayment of Artists
7July 21, 2026
Two artists have filed suit against downtown New York galleryThe Holealleging nonpayment of funds owed,Artnewsreports. Daniel Um and Nastaran Shahbazi filed their case in Manhattan Supreme Court on July 16, with Um claiming that the gallery owes him $28,975 and Shahbazi asserting that she is owed $21,000. The pair said the missing money is related to works they provided to the gallery on consignment for display and sale between 2024 and 2026, for which they allege to have received only partial payment.
According to the filing, Um and Shahbazi were told by gallery management, when asked about the missing remuneration, that money was tight and no payment was immediately forthcoming. PerNew York State law, consignment profits rightfully belong to the artist and cannot be used by galleries to cover operating costs.
Founded by Kathy Grayson, a onetime Deitch Projects director, on New York’s Bowery in 2010, The Hole has struggled financially in recent years. It welcomed a TriBeCa outpost in 2021 and a West Hollywood branch the following year. The Los Angeles outpost was forced to close the following year as the art market cooled; in 2025, landlords of both Manhattan spaces filed nonpayment complaints, alleging over $120,000 in unpaid real estate tax and rent on the TriBecCa space and more than $60,000 in unpaid rent and additional charges at the Bowery location. That same year, Kenny Schachter in an Artnet column wrote that The Hole had been accused of being slow to pay artists.
The nonpayment suit filed by Um and Shabazi is not the first the gallery has been slapped with. 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.