wow, informative AND blunt.
I enjoyed this whole piece. I would like to add, though, that if an artist does indeed find one gallery that they think is a fit, they need to be faithful and aggressive towards the gallery. Don't give up till they tell you to. Stop by with new photographs when new work is completed. If they give you any time and interest at all, then that is an open door. It took me five years to get Augen Gallery where I show now. But I didn't wait for them to call....
Most of my peers and myself approached our respective galleries for representation. If the gallery is keen, they'll give you a show in some out of the way quiet time of the year or end of the year Christmas show and take it from there. Also, hound the major players to come to your ARI shows. Curators are paid to see your work so make sure they know about it.
Ha! This is why I wake up with a forty two year old fresh out of art school smile on my face every morning.
More importantly.. how can I gauge my success as an artist?
If I pull off an archibald prize win followed by a lot of media attention, and then someone pays a stupid amount of money for my winning entry a couple of years later, does that mean I am a successful artist?
bitter, bitter.
Where to from 'art school'??
Check out our bloggers at
www.craftaustralia.com.au/forum/2006
This is an online forum with makers talking about how they achieved success after art school.
Worth a visit.
Dear TAL,
You forgot to include, 'to be a successful artist you have to learn, the ART of 'wife swapping' and the mutual benefits of learning how to give [...] which apparently is all the fuss!!
So take heed all you emerging and submerging artists out there who are disillusioned with the current climate.
You can do better than that Spiv
Edited By Siteowner
And if you are after sales, you can always produce some coastline scenes with birds and ships. Then attach yourself to a quasi gallery that just lerves to sell! http://www.unitedgalleries.com.a...px?
artistId=110
May I lay a challenge? Find me the most sold out artist- (evidence of the behaviour Spiv points out above would be most welcome)
if this is FAQs #1, i can't wait to see what 2 - 4 will be! How to inflate market prices for museum curators dating commercial gallery owners? How to best insult your art media arch-nemesis? What is the cheapest wine to serve at an opening?
you forgot "how to include your partner or spouse in a show regardless of the relevance of their artwork"
We'll take any and all suggestions for future FAQs.
I know an artist; Lyndal Campbell, who has 'sell out' shows, making a matzoh! She doesn't read this (hell, she can hardly use a computer!), so I can be homest. Her work is decoratively layered, comes from the heart, bright in colour and not challenging in any way. She knows her materials, and works quite hard, and people line up to buy her paintings.
It makes me sick.
I am jealous because I do not sell work, and work more on the dark side, and hardly paint, but this is the art market in only one tiny area...people will buy anything that can enhance their sofa cushions, and paintings are trad.
Hmmm.
WWW, you are a pathetic individual. It's great to see you using this forum to display such ugly envy in public.
personally, i giggled about this post for days, and then went back to painting badly on masonite.
Dear Warren,
I giggled for days also, but then I releazed I was giggling about my own death!!
'middle-aged could have beens'? .. obviously written by a 20-something wanna be... such petty sniping is just too immature.. believe it or not one day you'll be over 30 so show some respect!
I never wanted any of this. I never wanted to be a contemporary artist. I didn't like those long walks on beaches with new mediums and balked at smokin' strip joints and their liberated languages. The truth was; I just fucking hated art dealers. I engineered my endeavour in the early nineties, surely I said, there must be a way to be the fucker overer rather than the ee. I composed 2 bodies of work. The first, following then procedure as to what art sold would be presented to the dealers and their collectors. The second and more sinister efforts would be what would arrive at the gallery once the first enticement had earnt a solo exhibition. It was a fucking hassle it's true. Always exchanging works just in time for them Young Liberal Party derivative studio visits, but friends, it was worth it. By 1997, by consistantly handing in work to galleries expecting a money show, but rather, receiving the 'difficult' - the 'challenging' (their words) - financial crisis (my words), I succeeded in the closure of 3 comercial galleries. Each and every one driven by materially-orientated-aethetically-deprived fuckwits. It's not that I wanted the work to be difficult, I just wanted the heads in galleries behind desks to bleed down onto those highly polished environmentally damning floorboards. Would I do it again? I'm trying.
And baby artists, don't waste your time on CV's and slides. Go down to your local newsagents and purchase a box of small red circular stickers. Unwind the contents and carefully print your name on each sticker and post to the potential gallery of your choice. This way and this way alone, the bag of human excrement walking round town in the guise of a gallerist will learn, through a fairly simplistic memory association that your name means money. You're in - now kill it off.
Nice career guide TAL, I enjoyed it.
I still reckon that even in a tiny little city like Sydney - it might be more interesting to discuss the art worlds - and the varying trajectories of access and participation in each. (there is a defined pedagogical and networking base to enter the worlds of either ACGA - vs one of those weird little woollahra shops, vs artspace or AGNES - and this extnds even to the types of ARI's or group shows of community/charity art projects that artists might want to jump in on in - sadly much more than the acutal medium/subject/quality of the work.....
And why hasn't anyone come up with a wiki on how to negotiate the good, the bad and the ugly of ARI's in this town????
(hmmm another back burning project for OSAS - I'll get to it one day)
what artists really need is the same system of representation that actors have - we need agents, that we pay a nominal fee to who can then take part in some highly trained professional brown nosing
the poor reality is that we have to kiss arse to be noticed
not only do we have to act as our own PR/marketing dept, but we also have to somehow make heads or tails of a crazy art/tax system, which apparently is new and improved (?)
lucky the perks are greater than the cons..ie. guaranteed ongoing social activity, free food and booze on tuesdays and wednesdays and even saturdays if you go to the arthouse for their oddly placed openings
so for all the whining us so-called emerging artists take part in...
its a fucking good life!
no it's not. it's crap.
For all of those who hate art dealers and the system... there is a way to get around that. Start a small place yourself. Show your friends. No, not forever and not for big business but just to change the power structure for a moment in time.
I was very frustrated a few years back, for a myriad of reasons, all regarding the supposed 'art career.' Then I just thought f*ck it, I'm gonna turn my studio into a gallery for awhile (for as it was, even my studio was giving me this kind of pyschological pain of 'nonsuccess.') All I did was paint the walls, add some lights, send out a card and a press release (and the artists helped me with some of those things).
Immediately things changed, at least in my head. I was no longer with my hand out, but the one who could actually give something, an opportunity, small as it was. And it wasn't forever, it was just for a while, but it changed my life.
Why... "there are only 10 to 20 contemporary art galleries in Melbourne and Sydney with perhaps a dozen exhibiting artists each"?
Well... I work in the art industry, and I reckon the panorama is wider than this...
I might be naive... but I sell, and I respect artists for what they are and do. I would never respect them if they kissed my arse.
Maybe the problem is my arse.
Nother question: To what extent should the "want-to-be emerging artist" modify their work to current trends in contemporary art in order to attract market interest?
Commenting by HaloScan
