Artists and Former Staffers Accuse Cape Town Gallery SMAC of Nonpayment and Withholding Artworks

South African artist Kate Gottgens recently took to social media to accuse Cape Town gallery SMAC of failing to either pay her for works the gallery had sold or return the works if they were still in the gallery’s possession.

On July 2, she posted an image of her painting Audible Doom (2011) to Instagram. In the green-hued, hazy scene, a female figure, apparently with a bag over her head, stands on a ledge, seemingly addressing several other shadowy figures. Gottgens asked, “Has anyone seen this painting?” She said that SMAC displayed it at the Miart fair in 2022 and that it did not sell. It was not returned to her “in spite of many requests over the last 4 years,” she wrote in the post, which she has since deleted.

She said that since she left the gallery eight months ago, the gallery had repeatedly promised to either pay for the work or return it, but that it had done neither. Several other paintings are also unaccounted for, she says, though the gallery has told her they are “on the way back.”

“I resorted to Instagram because after months of emails and WhatsApps I wasn’t getting anything transparent or honest from them,” Gottgens told ARTnews in a phone call the day after her post. “I left the gallery eight months ago after 10 or 12 years of being with them. It was very difficult. It’s taken eight months of emailing every day to get money back and there are still three works that are in captivity in Belgium since 2022.”

Her issues with the gallery were first reported by South African publication 2OceansVibe and later by News24.

Only after her Instagram post, the artist told ARTnews, did she hear from the gallery, which paid her up to date; she agreed in return to remove the post. But she stands by her complaints about the gallery’s practices.

The gallery emailed a statement to ARTnews, reading, in part: “SMAC has been in business for a number of decades and has a proud record of achievements for its artists and for acting in good faith. Unfortunately, the current matter has muddied the waters, however, we do have facts to support our case. We are also deeply disappointed that some artists, whose careers we have supported from obscurity to renown, are now acting with inexplicable malice. While these artists have chosen to move to major galleries (because of the achievements during their time with SMAC), they have decided to pursue this course, despite the fact that the majority of issues outstanding have been resolved, and their careers are booming… Artists have the right to move to other galleries, and they have the right to free speech. This does not, however, justify the creation of and dissemination of false narratives… We are working hard to mitigate the damage that is being caused to ourselves and to our artists, as well as others impacted. We are optimistic that all issues have and will be resolved.”

Dealer Baylon Sandri opened SMAC (originally called Stellenbosch Modern and Contemporary) in that South African city in 2007, expanding to Cape Town in 2011. The gallery also had a venue in Johannesburg from 2016 to 2023. In just the last five years, it has exhibited at fairs including Art Basel (Paris, Hong Kong and Miami Beach), the Armory Show in New York (where the gallery mounted a solo presentation of Gottgens’s work in 2024), Art Brussels, and Artissima. Sandri comes from a prominent family; his father Emiliano Sandri founded Cape Town restaurant La Perla, which the Daily Maverick credited with transforming the city’s culinary scene. The paper notes that Baylon owns and runs the restaurant.

The gallery provided ARTnews with selected email and WhatsApp correspondence with Gottgens dating back to June 2025, in which the gallery says the works are in Belgium and makes various, changing statements about when the work will be returned and by what means. Gottgens threatens a social media campaign to expose the gallery’s “attempted fraud” and “unethical practices.” The gallery blames the shipper, saying the problems are “beyond our control.” “You’ve broken every promise and every deal made in the last 8 months,” writes Gottgens on July 2. “You agreed to pay for the work if it had not arrived by May 31st. That date has passed. Still no money or work.” That same day, the gallery promises yet another delivery date, this time in August. Only in response to Gottgens’s Instagram post does the gallery, on July 3, pay her 297,500 rand (about $18,225).

But Gottgens still hasn’t received Audible Doom. She forwarded ARTnews a July 8 email from a logistics company in Milan, not Belgium, confirming that they are holding three other works of hers for SMAC. “Audible Doom was originally part of this group,” she says.

Other artists and former staffers interviewed for this article, some requesting anonymity in order to speak frankly, pointed out that many artists have left the gallery’s roster after experiencing the same frustrations as the ones voiced by Gottgens. Today, the gallery’s website lists 14 artists. Versions of the gallery’s website from 2011 to 2022, consulted via the Wayback Machine, list as many as 28 artists; that number dropped to 16 in 2023 and has remained at about that level ever since.

In a phone conversation, Cape Town–based artist Jody Paulsen told ARTnews that other artists had similar experiences. After the gallery organized a solo presentation at the Miart fair in Milan in 2023, the gallery later said it would stop working with him. From what he had heard from other artists, he knew that separating would be difficult. It took months to get money from the gallery, he said, and then there was the problem of getting his works back. More than 10 were at the Milan storage space, he said.

“They kept telling me the work was on its way or they were waiting to do a joint shipment,” he said. “It was all just excuses to slow the process. They stalled for two years. I paid money to lawyers to write them letters that they ignored. Eventually I got in touch with Miart and they pointed me to storage facilities recommended by the art fair. The gallery hadn’t been paying for the space. I had to pay €6,000 to get my work released.” Contacted by ARTnews, the fair confirmed that they directed the artist to their logistics provider for assistance retrieving artworks that had not been returned, and that the artist had recovered the works.

After Paulsen spoke to the media about his experience, the gallery reimbursed him for the lion’s share of what he had paid, he told ARTnews.

The gallery sent ARTnews paperwork showing that the amount Paulsen paid was actually €5,112. Paulsen tells ARTnews there was also an import release fee that accounts for that difference.

“The same happened to me,” commented Berlin- and Cape Town–based artist Gabrielle Kruger on Gottgens’s post before it was taken down. Soon after she commented, she told ARTnews, the gallery emailed her about the return of three large artworks that Sandri had sent on loan to Galerie Bloom, founded in Geneva by Cedrik Pages, in 2022, the same year she left the roster. She said she got no answer to “countless” requests to both galleries for the return of the works. “In SMAC’s case, they said because I left, it was my problem,” she said.

About a year later, Bloom closed, she said, and the works were featured on Artsy by Galerie Frank Pages (also of Geneva), which also ignored her requests to have the artworks returned. The email from SMAC, coming as it did immediately after Gottgens’s post, she said, “shows that they’ve had the means all along to return the work. It only took a brave artist to speak up publicly.” Cedrik Pages did not immediately answer a social media message requesting comment; an Instagram account for Gallery Frank Pages lists a non-functioning website.

The gallery claims the problems came about because Bloom declared insolvency and sent ARTnews an email to the gallery from Sandri’s lawyer, Jonas Hertner, with a summary of his efforts since December 2025 to get the artworks returned. It says Pages authorized the works’ return on June 26. “Once the artworks were recovered,” said SMAC, “we immediately began arranging for them to be returned to their respective owners.” Kruger says she was never informed of any such proceedings or transfer of consignments and had not heard from the gallery since 2023.

Two former gallery staffers told ARTnews that they fielded calls regularly from art fairs and suppliers, trying to secure payment. Artists repeatedly contacted both the former staffers, they said, trying to find out how they could get back their work or get paid what the gallery owed them, sometimes breaking down in tears in these conversations. Writers commissioned to contribute texts to accompany exhibitions also report nonpayment by the gallery, said both former staffers.

“The business has been run on the sweat of artists,” said Gottgens.

“I think part of what makes this so sad is that there are so few South African galleries with a genuine international presence,” said one artist who formerly showed with the gallery and wished to remain anonymous. “Any artist who gets the opportunity to show with SMAC believes it could be an important step in their career and a chance to have their work seen internationally. That’s why so many artists took the risk, even after hearing how badly others had been treated. People hoped their experience would be different. Instead, many found themselves dealing with the same pattern of poor business practices, emotional turmoil, and what they experienced as abusive behavior. Artists weren’t naive. They were simply willing to take the chance because the opportunity seemed too significant to pass up.”