Jack Shainman Gallery has responded at size to a lawsuit introduced by artist Odili Donald Odita, who beforehand sued the New York gallery, alleging that it wouldn’t return his artworks to him.
In October, Odita, an artist whose work has appeared in exhibitions such because the Venice Biennale, claimed that these artworks have been price $1.12 million. However in a submitting from late November, Jack Shainman Gallery mentioned that the gallery has far much less stock than the artist claimed and alleged that Odita nonetheless owed the gallery cash for manufacturing prices.
The gallery had beforehand staged eight exhibitions for Odita, a longtime fixture on its roster till lately. The artist, who was born in Nigeria and is now based mostly in Philadelphia, lately painted the atrium of the Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York.
In his lawsuit, Odita mentioned the gallery had paid him a month-to-month quantity beginning in 2016. He mentioned he was paid $14,000 month-to-month on the time and that the gallery stopped paying him in 2024.
Jack Shainman Gallery mentioned in its submitting that it initially undertook this fee construction as a result of “Odita claimed that he was residing past his means.” However the gallery additionally claimed that it had continued elevating the worth of Odita’s stipend earlier than 2024 as a result of the artist nonetheless needed to pay $586,000 in loans offered by the gallery.
That quantity, Jack Shainman Gallery mentioned, was an “unsustainable degree in gentle of what had change into sluggish gross sales of Odita’s artworks.” In keeping with the submitting, Odita sought to boost his costs by 160 p.c, regardless that the gallery beneficial not more than 20 p.c.
“The market was nice as much as a sure level,” Elisabeth Sann, a senior director at Jack Shainman Gallery, instructed ARTnews. “The market supported the will increase in month-to-month funds. We actually attempt to be supportive as attainable of our artists.” She added that this was a “distinctive state of affairs” inside the gallery, and that “none of his different galleries have been offering that.”
“We pay our artists in accomplished gross sales,” Sann mentioned, referring to the stipend as “advance in opposition to future gross sales.”
The gallery claimed it had the appropriate to “retain” 5 works by Odita. These works, allegedly valued at $650,000, have been consigned in 2024 by Jack Shainman Gallery to David Kordansky, which additionally represents the artist. (Sann mentioned this was regular for when a Shainman-represented artist additionally indicators with one other entity; David Kordansky started representing Odita in 2022.) On November 9, 2025, the gallery allegedly launched these works to Odita by “oral settlement,” however that he nonetheless should repay his loans. These loans, the gallery mentioned, are price simply over $292, 000.
Odita’s lawsuit claimed that Jack Shainman Gallery’s accounting was “extraordinarily suspect.” Jack Shainman Gallery mentioned in its November submitting that Odita had a behavior of “disputing monetary statements many times regardless of that they’d been reviewed.”
A lawyer for Odita declined to touch upon Jack Shainman Gallery’s counterclaims.
Sann mentioned that Odita’s lawsuit had come as a shock to the gallery, which was “very near coming to an settlement” with the artist previous to his submitting. “It simply feels a bit of like we’re being punished for being beneficiant,” she mentioned.
