Marketing Mondays: Are There Too Many Artists?

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On last week's post about the M.F.A. , a commenter asked this question: Are there too many artists?

My kneejerk response: It's not that there are too many artists, but that there are not enough galleries.

Image from Ionarts taken by Mark, at Metro Pictures during Postcards From the Edge

True, the art schools are cranking out artists with B.F.A. degrees. And when those B.F.A.ers can't find galleries or reasonable employment, many go back to school for an M.F.A. Then not only do we have unrepresented artists, we have overqualified unemployment.

But looking more deeply, I think it's valid to assume that not every person who goes to art school will become an artist. Many gallery owners and directors have studied art. The same is true for critics and arts writers; curators (independent and regularly employed); as well as consultants and private dealers. Collectors, too. We operate along a continuum, from the folks who make the art to those who show and sell it, to those to acquire it for their homes, businesses and museums. All of those eyes and brains have gotten an art education, even if they didn't end up as artists.

And not every artist will go after New York gallery representation, or big-city gallery representation, or commercial gallery representation, period. There are many artists who are happily showing in co-op venues or in non-profits or who, while unshown in New York, have solid regional careers. There are artists who run studio/galleries, tyically in summer-resort or winter-vacation areas. There are artists, often academically employed, whose careers revolve around solo (and catalogued) exhibitions in regional museums and academic galleries. Still others fold artmaking into a life lived fully and creatively away from the conventional venues and scenes.

While I think it's true there are more artists than will ever find the kind of representation they want, there are never too many artists. We're resiliant, inventive and entrepreneurial. If we can't find a place for ourselves, we invent one, carve one out, will one into existence. That's my take, anyway.

What about you? Do you think there are too many artists?
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Women in Print

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The Susan Sheehan Gallery in Chelsea specializes in prints. The recent Women in Print show was focused on the work of well-known women painters, and some sculptors, who are also known for their prints. The bad news: The show is over and the gallery website doesn't have a visual record of it. The good news: I do, and I have some installation images to share with you.

Let's peek in:

A view into the gallery

Three counterclockwise from right: Polly Apfelbaum, Lover's Leap, 2007, multicolor woodblock print (edition of 35: $15,000); Kate Shepherd, Imagined Evening Day, Blue Brick Stage, 2004, silkscreen (edition of 45: $2300); Karen Davie, Indivisibles #1, 2007, inkjet pigment print (edition of 35: $3900)

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Note: I'm including the prices because I think it's interesting to see how they range among artists, and in relation to the edition number.

Continuing down the long wall

Mary Heilman, top: All Night Movie, 1991, etching on handmade paper (edition of 30: $1850) and Mint Print, 1998, etching (edition of 40: $3600); Susan McClelland, Mr. Man, 2001, intaglio in two colors (edition of 23: $2950); Joanne Greenbaum, Twizzler, 2008, etching and aquatint (edition of 12: $3150)

Above

Pat Steir, Silver Waterfall, five-color screenprint, and Wolf Waterfall, two-color screenprint, both 2001 (each, edition of 35: $5800)

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Below

Agnes Martin, On a Clear Day, 1973, portfolio of 30 screenprints (edition of 50 + proofs: $165,000)

In the second gallery

Louise Bourgeois, Autobiographical Series, 1994, portfolio of 14 etchings with aquatint and drypoint (edition of 35+ 10 APs: $50,000)

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Back in the first gallery, swinging around to the left wall

Counterclockwise: Elizabeth Murray, Shoe String, 1993, three-dimensional lithograph (edition of 70+proofs: $10,000); Lee Bontecou,Untitled, 1967, etching (edition of 144+proofs: $4500); two by Joan Mitchell, top: Untitled (Purple, Gray, Black, White), 1959 and Untitled (Black, Crimson), 1959-60, both color silkscreen (each edition of two printers proofs: $3500); Helen Frankenthaler, East and Beyond, 1973, woodcut (edition of 18: $75,000). Additionally, but difficult to see: Lee Krasner and Grace Hartigan

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By the way, don't even think of asking "Where are the men's art shows." I have no intention of getting pulled into that discussion, though I realize that unrepresented males probably feel similarly disenfranchised (until they get their gallery). Suffice it to say that here in the 21st Century, the artist pyramid which starts in art school with more female students ends in the New York galleries with far more men being shows and represented. Actually, in the galleries, it's more like a ziggurat. The real pyramid is in the museums.

Go, women!

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Milhazes in the Window

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Lately it seems as if the James Cohan Gallery is showing all Milhazes all the time. I'm not complaining. The work is joyful and visually intoxicating. I tried to photograph the installation in the small window-facing gallery, but some guy with a giant head was chatting up a collector type--blah, blah, blah--and they just wouldn't budge from their spot in front of the work. So I shot above their heads to get the two pics you see here.



Then I went to the gallery website and found a nice installation shot, which I have taken the liberty of reproducing here. I guess more than anything else I've seen in the past few weeks, this work personifies the new season--well, the season that arrived but has been in hiding for the past few days. Spring!

Gamboa, 2008, iron and mixed media, 27.6 in tall x 45.7 in diameter
Image from the gallery website

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Marketing Mondays: The M.F.A.

We're entering graduation month, so it seems appropriate to ask: When did the M.F.A. become so important? And to whom, exactly, is it important?

Colloquially known as "More Fucking Artists," the Master of Fine Arts degree has become--depending on your point of view:
. essential for a career as an exhibiting artist
. a way to avoid the pressure of showing art in the real world
. an invaluable educational experience
. a colossal waste of money
. network central
. a clique with you on the outside
. the best thing you could do for your career
. a debt that virtually assures you'll never be able to buy a home

The days are gone—and they were few to begin with—when dealers would swoop into the M.F.A. studios of a big-city institution, select a student and then create a career for her, or more likely, him.

If you want to teach, yes, the M.F.A. is essential. But consider this: If every M.F.A. graduate expects to teach, there will need to be more and more students—an educational Ponzi pyramid. Think you're going to get a cushy job in a major city? Think again. Unless you have a great career already, your options will be limited to universities in Podunk, Wahoo, and Boondock Corners. OK, that's extreme, but don't plan on teaching in New York, OK? And once you get tenure in Podunk, you're cemented in there.

As for dealers, when I ask how important this terminal degree is when they're considering an artist, every one I have spoken to says, in almost these exact words: "It's about the work." Daniel, a Chelsea dealer, says unequivocally that it makes "no difference." Edward, also a Chelsea dealer, qualifies his "no difference" with the comment that, "It shows me an artist is serious about his/her career." In other words, an M.F.A. might enhance your chances if you have a chance to begin with. Might.

I want to hear from all you artists out there, but in this post I though I would talk to two painters who are also dealers. Both Miles Conrad and Kathleen O'Hara can address the topic in a way that few others can.

Miles Conrad, a partner in the Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson, has a newly minted M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. Here's what he has to say:
. "As an artist, it was a grueling and vulnerable experience that was absolutely necessary for me to undertake in order to move my work forward. I learned a lot about myself in the process and my work has evolved. "
. "As a gallery director/curator I am most impressed by strong, coherent work from any source. An M.F.A. is not part of our criteria when evaluating work, but we do consider those factors when making hard decisions and distinctions among equally strong candidates."

Kathleen O'Hara, a partner in the OHT Gallery in Boston, says, "The two years I spent in graduate school were a pivotal phase in my life."
. As an artist: "I think it varies from artist to artist, but for me the process of earning my M.F.A. confirmed my commitment to being a professional artist/curator. Having few expectations other than that I would be provided the opportunity to work in depth with good people, helped. Two years of working in a studio environment with fellow students and faculty artists seemed like a dream come true for me, since I had been out of school for a couple of years working 9-5 for a commercial printer."
. As a dealer: "As co-director at OHT, I agree that it's all about the work. But I also have to say that the overwhelming majority of our artists have an MFA or BFA degree...."

If you're in an M.F.A. program for the opportunity to grow as an artist in a supportive environment, you'd better make sure you pick a school that will support you. If the institution is all about new media and you're a painter, oops, bad choice. (This is the situation my friend J encountered, but she stuck it out because she needed that degree to keep her job.) If what you want is to eventually support yourself through the sale of your art or if you're a woman, better make sure you won't be dealing with old-school professors who believe that selling well means selling out, or that women don't "deserve" the same career as men. (Yes, they're still out there.) Ask around. Choose wisely.

In the interest of transparency, I have an M.A. in Visual Arts from Goddard College. I got it when the terminal degree was less important than it is now. It was a low-residency program, which allowed me to continue working to support myself. Perhaps for that reason, I have not found it nearly as helpful as my own hard work. It's important to note that I'm not interested in academia as a career (though I love the professional development course I teach—one, I might add, that has nothing to do with a degree and everything to do with actual experience).

So what about you: Do you have an M.F.A? Was it worth the time and expense? Has it helped you? If you don't have one, do you feel held back by the lack of the degree? If you're a dealer or curator, does an advanced degree make a difference to you when you're considering an artist or is it "all about the work?"

Image taken from the Internet: Arm and Leg charm by Amanda Jo
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Yayoi Kusama at Gagosian in Chelsea

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I Want to Live Forever, 2008, acrylic on canvas; five panels app. 90 x 358 inches overall, with detail below

I'm not sure when Yayoi Kusama made the leap from Robert Miller to Gagosian, but here she is, ensconsed in Larry's hangar-like space on 24th Street.

I snapped a few pics of the installation, even though there's a no-photography policy at the gallery. But I'm not using them, because the gallery's website has some beautiful shots--much better than my guerilla attempts, and they're grab-able.

Kusama's work often appears minimal from a distance, like the five-panel work that opens this post, yet from up close you can see how obsessively patterned it is. It's both meditative and eye-jangling. She seems to make no effort to reconcile those elements, and I like that; pick your viewing distance and take from it what you will. It's also big. I Want to Live Forever goes on forever, well, almost 30 running feet.

And then there are her inifinity rooms, boxes for which you wait on line to enter. It's always worth the wait. Illumination and mirrors multiply to create an endless horizon of hallucinatory power. They make we want to drop acid again--though, really, I'm not sure the chemical trip could be any better than the visual experience Kusama provides.

By the way, I didn't intend for age to be a rolling theme in two successive posts, but Kusama, still hitting all the big notes, recently turned 80.

Trip in a box: Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity, 2009, mixed media installation, app. 164 x 164 x 113 inches.

The polkadot objects don't do for me, have never done for me, what the paintings or light-box installations do. But who wouldn't want to stop and take in three giant black-on-yellow pumpkins in a matching room, like the prizewinners on display in some kind of extraterrestrial state fair.

Pumpkin, 2008, fiberglass-reinforced plastic, app. 69 a 71 x 74

Full view below, as seen from the sidewalk on 24th Street
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All images except the detail from gagosian.com
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Quick: Louise Fishman at Cheim & Read

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Has Louise Fishman been lifting weights? These new paintings of hers at Cheim & Read are the most muscular I’ve seen. Fishman’s paintings are hard to love at first. They’re big and messy, and her colors tend toward the browns and grays. But spend some time with them, and you acquiesce to their power. What this second-generation abstracton expressionist does with paint, with gesture, is to assume control of the surface and the space around it and then draw you in. By the time you get up close, you're head over heels. These painting offer not just brawn but passages of sublime beauty.

I’m late with this report. The show is up only until tomorrow. If you’re in New York and haven’t seen it, hustle on over to 25th Street. If you can’t, click onto the gallery website for some great installation shots.

Here are a few I shot myself—along with with some ravishing details that are just under actual size. And by the way, Fishman is 70. An age stereotype shattered.

COncealing and Revealing, 2008, oil on linen, 87.75 x 70 inches

Below: Three details

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All Night and All Day, 2008, oil on canvas, 66 x 57 inches

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Below: Three details

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P.S.: Too Good To Pass Up

At Cheim & Read, 547 W. 25th Street: Louise Fishman, Gorgeous Green, 2008, oil on jute, 24.25 x 32 inches

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View through the lobby window of 511 W. 25 Street

Gusky on Phishing

From Bill Gusky via Facebook: "Hey, there's a new virus or phishing scheme going around. You'll get a message from someone trying to get you to click on a link to go to Fbstarter. com. Don't click on the link. Delete the message."

Read Hrag on Jerry

On the NYFA site, Hrag Vartanian reports on Jerry Saltz's talk at the New York Studio School on April 22.
One problem with art in the past 15 year is that over-academicized critics and curators have taken the joy out of art. Another was the overheated art market.
Quoting Vartanian quoting Saltz: “The problem with the art market,” Saltz said . . . “was that we were all in the same boat. We can only hope that this future art world would probably look like a massive fleet of modest-sized ships, rather than one ill-fated luxury ocean liner." Read the whole thing.
Picture from the NYFA website

Marketing Mondays: How is Your Pie Sliced?

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I purchased a specially vented air conditioner for my studio last year from Grainger, the machine and equipment company. I’m now on their mailing list. The way they address the envelope makes me laugh every time I get one: “Joanne Mattera, Facility Maintenance Manager.”

Yes, that’s me. Joanne the Janitor. I’m also the CEO, the head of PR, the administrative assistant, the secretary, the director of the accounting department, and the entire staff of both the mail room and the packing and shipping department. It's quite a pie; I might as well be a baker, too.

I’m telling you this for a reason.

Last Monday I was the visiting artist at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa. I was invited by the painter Steven Alexander, a professor in the art department. My slide talk—to undergraduates, MFA candidates,
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The pie chart: Guess how much of my time
is actually spent painting
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and faculty—was a career overview intertwined with practical career advice for the students. Steven had introduced me as a working studio artist, and during the presentation, as I showed my work and discussed career issues, I talked about my transition from 9-to-5 employment (when artmaking was squeezed into evenings, weekends, vacations and "sick days") to full-time studio artist. .
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This audience was with me, so I went on for a whole hour. When the lights went up, the questions came out. Great questions, too: specifics about finding a gallery, understanding the gallery hierarchy, pricing work, studio issues, and balancing the art practice with income-producing jobs.
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Toward the end of the Q&A period, a professor sitting at the back asked: "What percentage of your day now is actual painting time, as opposed to when you were working a full-time job?"
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Here’s the shocking answer: About the same. I’d guess about 30 percent, or the amount depicted by the three saturated wedges of red, aqua and olive in the pie chart above.
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The rest of it is taken up with all the non-painting tasks required to get the work out into the world and to keep track of it once it's out there. Of course the math doesn’t usually work out so neatly. When I’m preparing for a show, I might spend almost 100 percent of my work time in the studio for weeks or months, and when the show is delivered, 100 percent of the following weeks crashing, then cleaning up and catching up. But that professor’s question is a sobering reminder that in the phrase “working studio artist,” working is the operative word. When I left nine-to-five, I traded 80 hours a week (40 with with steady income, health insurance and vacation time) for 80 hours with an unpredictable income and no bennies.
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I wouldn’t want to go back to the way it used to be. I've been a painter for long enough now that when I go into the studio to paint, I paint. (That 30 percent goes deep. ) And all the non-painting work is in service to my career, not an employer's business. Having a fully immersed art life means that, in addition to the administrative work and facility maintenance managing, I'm also making studio visits and seeing art, writing and thinking about art. I actually like the way the pie is sliced. (Well, except for that dreaded desk work.)
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Now let me take the role of the professor: What percentage of your time is spent actually making art? Or to recast in a more visual way: How is your pie sliced? And are you happy with the portions?
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Sol LeWitt at MoMA

One of three walls of the installation

I haven't yet driven up to the big Sol LeWitt show at Mass MoCA, but there's plenty of time for that. It's on for another 24.5 years. Instead, I popped into the LeWitt installation at MoMA, which continues only until June 1.

Wall Drawing #260 is in an open space on the fourth floor, a big modernist box with wall-to-wall windows overlooking the sculpture garden. The other three walls, all broken by doorways, nevertheless offer high and broad expanses for the work, which is in the museum's collection.

I like this chalk-on-painted-wall piece, all arcs and curvy lines bisected or otherwise divided by angles and staccato lines. There's a logical progression to how the lines intersect, but I'm an artist, not a mathemetician, so I'm less concerned with the precise peregrination of the line, only that it moves and morphs as your eyes travel from wall to wall. The linear geometric composition suggests nothing so much as choreographic notation--a formal expression of the human activity in the enclosed space as people pass into, around and through it.

With your back to the window, you turn to the left wall, which contains a legend for the visual logic of the work

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Below: Turning slightly, you see part of the other two walls

Below that: The full expanse of the wall at right

A full expanse of wall
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Below: a detail of the chalk line


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Marketing Mondays: Stayin’ Alive

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With the “For Lease” and “For Rent” signs popping up in Chelsea and SoHo, the smug schadenfreuders are told-you-so-ing even as the ground gives way beneath their feet. Of galleries that have not closed, many are letting staff go—reportedly, even Pace and Gagosian. Red dots are everywhere less in evidence.

But the will to survive is strong. Whether the soundtrack is the BeeGees—oh, oh, oh, oh, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive—or Gloria Gaynor’s evergreen anthem to perseverance (or Celia’s Cruz’s inspired version in Spanish), we are all, as Celia sings, sopraviviendo. Surviving. Or trying to.

Galleries
At least Five galleries in New York have come up with novel ideas to keep going strong:
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. Winkleman and Schroeder Romero, those side-by-side dynamos over by the Hudson on 27th Street, have come up with Compound Editions, a project that offers limited-edition prints, sculptures or cards at acquisition-friendly prices (so far, in the 100-$150 range). The series are selling out, such as All Your Eggs, by Andy Yoder, shown left, an edition of 100. (Disclaimer: I bought one.)
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. Invisible Exports, down on Orchard Street, offers its Artist of the Month Club; pay $2400 for a year's subscription and you'll get a limited-edition print from a curator-selected artist each month. The collectors will know who the curators are but not the work they will select, says Benjamin Tischer, a director of the gallery. The website describes the process as introducing "Duchampian chance into the act of collecting."

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. In Williamsburg, Jack the Pelican Presents has installed Old School, a salon-style show of work by gallery artists and others. The paintings, works on papers and sculptures--all small--are priced to sell. Everything is under $2000, and many works are in the modest three figures. Cash and carry is the operative mode, with new work installed as sales are made. The gallery features work primarily of emerging artists, and in this economic climate it's a chance for the work to be seen as well as sold. The show runs through April 26.
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. Metaphor Contemporary, the gallery run by painters Rene Lynch and Julian Jackson, also in Brooklyn, has invited artists to donate a piece that will be part of a group exhibition and silent auction at the gallery in May (and an auction component that will take place on line). The show is titled Stayin' Alive. They've given artists the option of receiving the usual percentage of the sale, or something less, which would put more money into gallery programs. It's unusual, but artists who have shown there--I'm one of them-- are pitching in. (And thanks to the gallery for the title to this post; I unconsciously plagiarized it from them. ).
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Artists
Artists have their own ways of keepin' on keepin' on. Some are holed up in the studio painting more than ever. Some are focusing more on works on paper than on painting, or small paintings rather than large. Some are participating in group shows rather than committing to solos, or taking the opportunity to show at venues they might not have considered before: open studios, art centers, private dealers, even some non-profit venues where everyone kicks in a couple hundred to cover expenses (but not vanity galleries).
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I haven’t painted for a couple of months. Instead, I’m working with my network of galleries to place work that has already been made. For some time I’ve been trying to get off the treadmill of “What do you have that’s new?”—as if work from two years ago isn't as good or important as the new piece whose paint is not yet dry—and this downturn has given me that opportunity. I’m pleased with the sales, and I think my collectors are pleased with the work they've acquired. I’m also catching up on a ton of administrative work (and, if you haven’t noticed, blogging a little more than usual). I’m seeing more art, making more studio visits. When I get back in the studio—which will be soon, soon—I’ll do so with energy, enthusiasm and optimism.
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So here’s what I want to know from you, artists, gallerists and others: What are you doing to stay alive?
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Grace DeGennaro: Wellspring

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From Grace DeGennaro's portfolio

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Is there anything more thrilling than looking at a painter's work on paper? Not for me. As painters we approach paper differently--more primally. Or perhaps with fewer filters. We let more out onto the surface. So being privy to page after page of a portfolio is--how do I say this without it sounding corny?--like being washed over by the stream of an artist's imagination. At least that was what I was thinking when I had the opportunity to see Grace DeGennaro's portfolio at Clark Gallery in Lincoln, Mass.

I went on the last day of the Maine-based artist's exhibition, Return to the Source, which consisted primarily of paintings. It was a beautiful show, whose images--rivers and vines, diamonds, fountains and phases of the moon--come right from the work on paper, which come from traditional symbols and sacred geometry, which in turn spring from, as DeGennaro puts it, "ideas that lie beyond the limitations of language and culture." If I were to put a few words to the work, I'd say life, growth, renewal, time. I suppose it was appropriate that I went just as the earth was making its temporal transit from winter to spring.

Installation view from Grace DeGennaro's exhibition at The Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Mass.

My small camera does not do well with mixed-light sources, so the installation shots of a beautiful show were not so beautiful. But by a little miracle, every one of the portfolio shots was just about perfect--and it was almost as an afterthought that DeGennaro pulled out and opened the portfolio to show it to a small group of interested viewers.

The artist showing her portfolio: Her vocabulary of symbols, from the sacred geometry of many cultures, is realized in gouache on translucent okawara or heavier watercolor paper. Viewing it felt like a meditation

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You can see more of DeGennaro's paintings and work on paper on DeGennaro's website, the Clark Gallery , Aucocisco Gallery and Geoform

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Marketing Mondays: Promotion

Boston sculptor Donna Dodson asked the question that prompted this week’s topic:

“I was wondering about self-promotion versus promotion through a gallery. Do these work together or do they conflict? What are the boundaries?”
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As a self-promoter with a wonderful network of galleries supporting me, I can answer this one with confidence. The short answer: Self promotion and gallery promotion go together, hand in glove.

A slightly longer answer: Communication between you and your gallery will tailor the fit. A smart dealer understands that the efforts you take on your own behalf will ultimately benefit the gallery too.

Here’s Valerie McKenzie of McKenzie Fine Art in Chelsea: "It's always enormously helpful when artists participate in the promotion of their work, and by extension, promotion of the gallery. So it's important for artists to maintain as broad and meaningful a professional and social network as possible."

Do you have a website or a blog?
Then you’re self promoting. If you are represented, provide a link to the gallery. If you should be contacted by someone who has found your website and likes the work, direct them to the gallery.

It would be a mistake to think, “This collector found me through my website so I’m going to make the sale myself.” If you’re represented, work with your dealer. If you work with several galleries, direct a potential client to a) the dealer closest to them, or b) if they have seen a specific piece they really love, to the dealer who has that work.

Once you direct the collector to the gallery, it is the dealer who will complete the sale, collect the sales tax, deliver the work. It may well be that as a result of this kind of attention, you’ll get the solo you’ve been wanting, or the ad to go with the solo, or a catalog raisonne of the show. Success breeds success. On the other hand, if you find that your website is consistently directing more sales to the gallery than the gallery is generating on its own—and you’re getting no perks, such as a nic(er) ad or a catalog—it may be time to renegotiate the relationship. Perhaps you can suggest that the gallery take a smaller commission on those sales. Or maybe you'll realize it’s time for a different gallery. (Another topic for down the road.)

Are You Showing in an Open Studio?
If you’re gallery represented, you really don’t need to go the Open Studio route anymore, but if it’s one of those yearly events that your studio building or artists’ community participates in, go ahead. Cross promote with the gallery, working out ahead of time how you will deal with a sale. It might be as simple as calling the gallery to have them complete the sale over the phone--they take credit cards; you probably don't--or you having the collector make out a check to the gallery. Let the gallery deal with the business issues and the sales tax. The gallery will also maintain the relationship with the new collector in ways it’s set up to do: previews, special events, regular newsletters and such. And the signal to the new collector is, ‘If you want more work from this artist, come see it (and buy it) at the gallery.”

Having a Gallery Exhibition? Coordinate Your Efforts
Why duplicate when you can coordinate? If your gallery has exhibition PR taken care of, maybe you send a short handwritten note to a few critics or curators, inviting them to come to the show. Announce the show on your website or blog, again providing links to the gallery. Or maybe you promote yourself in an area outside the conventional parameters of gallery PR: your local paper, if it’s not in the same city as the gallery; a national publication whose demographic is specific to your identity or interests; even to your personal groups that might not go to a gallery if not for the fact that you re showing in it. "Tap into your network," says McKenzie.

Are You in An Exhibition Outside of the Gallery?
If you’re actively working on your career, it would be unusual if you didn’t show outside your gallery once in a while. It could be a solo or group effort, an invitational exhibition or independent curatorial effort, in an academic gallery, a non-profit, a co-op, or a regional museum. Depending on the circumstances, it might even be in another local/regional commercial gallery. Make sure your primary gallery (or the one that has facilitated the delivery of the work, or the one closest to the venue) is identified as representing you. For instance, I’m in a group show right now in a museum on Cape Cod. I have made sure that the work is identified as Courtesy of my gallery in Boston.
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You should know under what circumstances and for how much your primary gallery will share in the exhibiting gallery's sales commission if work is sold. A contract will spell this out. Since most of us don't work with documents beyond a consignment list, or a contract for a specific show, it's essential that you have a conversation with your dealer. (My feeling is that if you secure the show and the dealer will get a commission from the sale, that dealer should cover the cost of shipping the work if the second venue doesn't. I have also found that in galleries outside of New York it's unusual for the dealer to expect a commission on a show you secure on your own.)

Take Initiative
A few years ago I had a modest retrospective of 10 years' of encaustic painting at an academic gallery. It was the kind of show that my dealers were unlikely to put on, since much of the work had to be borrowed back from collectors, but all of them were excited for me. That being the case, I worked with the director of the academic venue to create a catalog of the show—and I asked each of my dealers to pre-purchase 100 copies of the catalog at cost. I got a great catalog for my time and effort, and they got many copies of a catalog at cost, which they were free to either sell or give away to collectors. Everyone was happy.

Or maybe you’d like a bifold or trifold card when all the gallery is prepared to pay for is a postcard. It happens. Most galleries don’t have your personal self promotion built into their budgets. Maybe you design it. Or split the cost above a certain amount, or you pay for the essay if they pay for the catalog. Or maybe all your self promotion has brought your career to the point that they take on the cost of the catalog themselves. There’s no hard-and-fast rule here, so a request, a discussion, some give and take, may result in some or most or all of what you ask for.

If you’re in a group show at a venue outside your gallery, I think you are perfectly free to make up a postcard with your own work and name on the front, with back-matter info that says you are participating in a group show. If appropriate, include the name of the juror or the curator, and if it’s a small group, it would be a generous gesture to include the names of the other artists. Some galleries have a “Gallery News” section on their websites noting the activities and events in which their artists are participating. If not, they may be willing to keep a stack of cards at the gallery. Again, if you’ve indicated that your work is Courtesy of that particular gallery, it’s a nicely reciprocal promotional opportunity.

Apropos of promotional postcards, McKenzie suggests you distribute them judiciously: "I discourage the obnoxiousness of handing out your own announcement card at someone else's opening! "

Unsure of Your Parameters? Talk to Your Dealer
The artist/dealer relationship may have its roots in business, but as a relationship it is interpersonal. And in any interpersonal relationship, communication is essential. Bottom line: It’s a rare (and myopic) dealer who doesn’t welcome your own promotional efforts.

Artists, how have you handled this issue of promotion? And as always I’d love to hear from folks who have a different take on the topic—that’s you, dealers and curators. .

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