Atmospheric

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Dan Flavin, Alternating Pink and Gold, at David Zwirner Gallery

There’s a lot of atmosphere in Chelsea right now. Not air, which is a given, but ethereal presence. Light and space.
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The David Zwirner Gallery is just pulsing atmosphere over on 19th Street in that block long building complex of his. First there’s the Dan Flavin sculpture that’s been up for a while, glowing yellow, pink and white in a semi-darkened space the size of a small airplane hangar. The effect is at once quietly grand and oddly intimate.
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In the gallery proper there’s Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970. This is beautifully rendered minimalism. Much of it is etheric, though there’s a strong sense of surface (now there's an oxymoron). The cool white exhibition spaces allow the work to appear to levitate. Don’t make me talk about it any more. I’m going to show you pictures. It’s up until February 6, so go see it for yourself.

But Zwirner’s California boys (and one girl) are not the only luminous game in town. In its Abstract Ensemble show, ACA Gallery on 20th Street has a lovely chromatic mirage of a painting by Leon Berkowitz. On 22nd Street, Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe’s Helen Frankenthaler show has a couple of small acrylic paintings on paper that fairly float.
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While everything I've just mentioned is from decades past, I have recent work to show you, too. At Kathryn Markel on 20th, there's Will 'O the Wisp, a show of paintings by Julian Jackson so softly diffuse and radiant they seem to be lit from within, as was his intention. And at Cynthia-Reeves Gallery on 24th Street, there are beautiful large-scale graphite drawings by Anne Lindberg whose striations pull you deep into their finely rendered fog. These two shows are also up through February 6. Go.

Doug Wheeler, Untitled, 1969; acrylic, neon tubing, and wood; 91.5 x91.5 x 7.5 inches. The work was set into it's own little space within the gallery

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Robert Irwin, Untitled, 1969, acrylic lacquer on formed acrylic plastic, 52 inches diameter. That large disc is barely visible even in person

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The side view, below, may help you understand what you're seeing

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From left: Peter Alexander polyester resin sculpture ; Larry Bell glass and metal sculptures (on pedestals); Robert Irwin painting
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Below: Helen Pashgian, Untitled, 1968-69, resin and acrylic sphere, 8 inches diameter

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In the large gallery, from left: Craig Kauffman hanging, Larry Bell "levitating" cube of moneral-coated glass, two of Kauffman's Untitled Wall Relief works, acrylic and lacquer on vacuum-formed plexi

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Below: a closer view of Kauffman's Untitled, 1969, acrylic and lacquer on plastic
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Leon Berkowitz, At ACA Galleries: Up Green, 1983-84, oil on canvas
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Julian Jackson at Kathryn Markel: Quadrant (Shimmer), oil on wood, 42 x 38 inches; the diptych Thanka, oil on wood, 56 x 96 inches

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Helen Frankenthaler at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe: Untitled, acrylic on paper, 22 x 30 inches

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Anne Lindbergh at Cynthia-Reeves : Title unknown, 2009, graphite on cotton board

Cri du Coeur

At the foot of the transparent Jean Nouvel building on 11th Avenue is this cry from the heart. Even without punctuation its message is crystal clear. For godsakes, Anthony, do something!

Marketing Mondays: "How Do I Get a Curator to Look at My Work?"

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Material Color, curated by Mary Birmingham for the Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey; October 5, 2008- January 21, 2009

Foreground: Carlos Estrada Vega

Background from left: Peter Fox painting, two sculptures by Markus Linnenbrink; three small paintings by me

Several readers have asked Marketing Mondays to address the issue of how to get on a curator's radar, and even more specifically, how to get a curator to look at work. Let me share with you what I've learned.

Over the past few years, I've spoken with a number of museum curators about my work. Other curators, over the course of several semesters, have spoken to a careers class I teach. Because the discourse in these situations was not meant for publication, I've quoted the curators without identifying them specifically. The quotes recall the spirit if not the exact letter of the conversation.

Mary Birmingham, a curator I have worked with, has agreed to talk on the record. Birmingham is the Exhibition Director at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey. She is quoted verbatim. Here's what she and the others have to say:

Send Postcards
It seems contrary, but a 19th-century means of communication remains one of the most powerful ways of getting a curator's (or dealer's) attention today. Everyone looks at a postcard, if only fleetingly. Put on your mailing list those curators you want to be aware of your work. Many curators save the postcards that appeal to them.

Here's A, an academic curator in New England with a busy schedule and a history of producing challenging exhibitions that get reviewed regularly: "I keep folders by category—abstraction, installation, sculpture, whatever. I file every postcard that appeals to me. Whenever I have some free time, usually in the summer when school is not in session, I take out the folders and see what I've accumulated. The biggest folders get my attention first. And if I find that I've saved several postcards from one artist, I take time to look at that artist's work online. I may then call to request a studio visit."

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Adds Birmingham, "I agree that postcards are effective attention grabbers, and they are an easy way to 'store' ideas. But don't overlook the value of an e-card; it doesn't have to be a snail mail version to be noticed."

Enter Shows Juried by a Curator You Want to Notice Your Work
Some of my colleagues don’t think this is such a great idea because, let's be honest, a curator isn't going to remember all that much out of a sea of submissions. But if the curator selected your work for inclusion in a show, and particularly if she awarded it a prize, by all means send a note to thank her for including you in the show or giving you that award.

Then stay in touch. Send an occasional postcard to announce an upcoming show. And if something really wonderful happens to you as a result of that juried exhibition, a note to the juror serves two functions: 1) It reinforces to the juror that her positive response to your work is shared by others; 2) It allows the juror to stay aware your career. Curators often follow artists' careers from a distance. You think those invitations to show in a museum happen overnight?

Maintain a Strong Web Presence
"I am a huge user of the Internet when I am mulling over exhibition possibilities," says Birmingham. "It's a great way to look for artists, and I find that one name usually leads to another." Google’s image feature allows her or any curator to cut right to the chase.
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Birmingham doesn't want to waste time with a site that's difficult to navigate or out of date. "It's important to maintain a working and workable site. For me it's a great way to preview an artist's work before committing to a studio visit. While I acknowledge that NOTHING takes the place of seeing the work in person, your website should at least give me an indication of your point of view. A good site will intrigue me enough to want to see more (and a bad one will seal the deal in another direction)."

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Show, Show, Show
Curators make a point of visiting galleries in their area, and they routinely hit the galleries in their nearest large city. Sooner or later all of them get to New York. The more you show, the greater your chances are of having your work seen—and you never know when or by whom.

"I saw 60 shows this past weekend," said B, a Boston museum curator who routinely makes quick trips into Manhattan. Will he remember everything? Well, not everything, but as he pointed out, "Part of my job is see a lot and to remember what I have seen."

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Curators Visit the Art Fairs
"I love art fairs," says Birmingham. "For me, working on the outskirts of New York City, they are a way to connect with multiple sources in a concentrated time and place. If I spend the day visiting galleries in New York, I'll usually target a particular neighborhood (the Lower East Side, Chelsea, etc.) to look at work for specific projects. It can be limiting. But at art fairs it's easier to stay loose--and be open to new ideas--while seeing a much greater volume of work. Since I'm always working on several shows simultaneously, art fairs allow me to easily and frequently 'switch gears' and think of several projects at once."

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Birmingham describes the fairs as "a particularly efficient way for me to see larger trends emerging." She is definitely not alone. A very large slice of the art world is taking notes and pictures at these events. And it’s worth noting that if you show with a small regional gallery, and that gallery takes a booth at one of the fairs, your work will be seen by curators (and dealers and other artists) from a geographically broad swath of the planet.
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Another example: A few years ago, at the Aqua Art hotel fair in Miami, I was in one of the rooms when a woman walked in, looked around and introduced herself to the person who looked to be in charge. “Hi, I’m [she said her name] from the [an Ohio]Art Museum.” For the duration of her time in the room, the dealer gave her his full attention as she looked at work and asked questions about this artist or that. I saw her in several other rooms that evening, each with the same scenario.
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Should You Send a Package to a Curator?
“There is six months' worth of packages in a box in my office and I have no time to look at them,” lamented C, a New England curator. Small museums may be short staffed even in the best of times. A cold-call package may stay in the box for some time.

But this is not always true. "I look at everything that's addressed to me," said the Boston curator. Has he ever included an artist in a show this way? "Not yet," he admitted, but studio visits have come about as a result of the contact. Ask around to see what the viewing preferences are of the curators you wish to reach.
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"This is helpful advice," says Birmingham, agreeing with the previous statement. "'Know thy curator' should be your comandment." She offers this example: "Since I work for a small regional museum, I would be unlikely to choose an artist from Texas as the recipient of a solo show. And with a limited shipping budget, I usually limit myself to choosing work within driving distance."

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So if you live in the region and you've got a sense of the museum, should you send her a package? "I have some strong opinions and advice here!" says Birmingham. "When artists contact my museum, they are told that they may send a package (or an email) to me, but that they should not expect an answer; that I will contact them if I require additional information. This is key! What I don't want is someone calling me to ask for feedback, or to 'follow up.'

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"Once you send a package to a curator you should think of the ball as being in their court. Leave them alone and let them do their thing. One word of advice: Patience. I can only speak for myself, but if you have impressed me I will probably remember your work. I may not give you a solo show right away or include you in a current exhibition, but I will definitely keep you in mind. If I don’t have a relevant project perhaps a friend or colleague does, in which case I may recommend you. Or perhaps I’m working on a show in two years for which you are perfect. Give me a chance to become acquainted with you and your work on my time frame. The fastest way off of my 'artists of interest' list is to hound me."

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Understand the Hierarchy
While the top curators in any big institution are going after the big names to create the blockbusters, the big surveys, and the all-star thematic shows, the associate and assistant curators are looking in the smaller venues for work to present to the higher ups, as well as for art to advance their own agenda. Like artists, emerging curators need to distinguish themselves with shows that receive critical attention and word-of-mouth buzz. Follow their work—and put them on your mailing list so that they might follow yours. Often these are the curators tapped to jury shows. They have nowhere to go but up, often moving from one museum to another as they go. If they respond to your work, you may find your career trajectory arc upward along with theirs.

Great show, but the MoMa curators, Starr Figura with Kathy Curry, didn't have to look outside the museum. Geo/Metric: Prints and Drawings from the Collection, June 11-August 18, 2008

Foreground: Bridget Riley

Location, Location, Location
I’m oversimplifying, but I think I can safely say that New York curators, who have a huge world of choices in their own hometown, don’t need to travel to regional or local museums to find artists.

If you are an artist who has not shown regularly in New York, you can certainly send postcards to the curators here whom you want to know about your work. But you’re more likely to get more traction with the curators of your local and regional museums, as Birmingham points out. Part of their mandate is to visit the galleries in their region and to show the work of artists who have a connection to the region; if you show regularly, chances are they’ve already seen your work.

Many curators hit the openings in their area, knowing they’ll see not just art but the people who make it and sell it. Learn who the curators are. Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself. Openings are a great democratizer, the opportunity to talk without a degree or a desk separating you in conversation.

Once you’ve gotten a local museum show and ideally an exhibition catalog and the support of a curator who has championed your work, you’ll be ready to broaden your exhibition base. Curators--like dealers, critics and artists--have their professional organizations. A reference from one curator may help you at another institution.

Networking: A Key to Getting on the List

Here's Birmingham describing how an exhibition comes into being: "Something stimulates my thinking. Then I start collecting names. There are usually additional names—referrals, suggestions—from the original artists on my list."

One artist on her list might have been in a show that turns up another couple of names. There are colleagues who travel and bring back postcards or exhibition information from shows they’ve liked. There's the dealer who suggests one of his artists; the artist friend who turns the curator on to a new gallery loaded with artists doing exactly the kind of work the curator responds to; the neighbor with a great eye; the brother's girlfriend's best friend who’s dating an artist; the friends of that artist.

Keep Showing
If you’re getting your work out there, it's entirely possible that curators have already seen your work. Often it’s repetition that makes the difference. A curator sees your work in a show, you’re mentioned by a dealer or another artist, there's a positive review in a regional magazine, a blog post by or about you gets circulated and, boom, you get a call or an e-mail from a curator who was nudged into action by the synchronicity. Similarly, inquiries timed to take advantage of a current show or good review may get you a quick response, perhaps even an invitation for a studio visit.
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Wrapping Up
"One final note," says Birmingham: "If a curator has given you positive feedback, by all means continue to update them by email. I’ll be happy to hear about your latest show or award or residency, as long as you realize I may not be able to respond personally. Remember that it’s a symbiotic relationship; curators need contact with artists (among others) in order to do their jobs effectively. We really do need each other. The trick is in striking the right balance. "

Next week: Birmingham explains how she selected the artists for a recent exhibition
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Water Lilies at MoMA

Honest to god, while I was waiting for the crowds to thin in order to get an unpeopled shot, I actually heard a woman say, “It’s pronounced Monay, like the jewelry.” Except that she said joo-ler-ree. I wondered if anyone would make a crack about a big sofa, but no. At least not on my watch, anyway.

Try to get there when the museum opens, before the hordes come charging in and posing in front of the paintings. It's a madhouse in there all day long, the very opposite of what must have been the tranquility of the Old Man's garden. The paintings are on view until April 12.

Here’s a link to MoMA for more info, and one to Roberta Smith’s New York Times review back in September.

Closing out the Year: Sharon Horvath

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Though I’ll slip in some current reporting, I'm using this month to look back at exhibitions I loved but didn’t get a chance to write about as Miami was looming. Sharon Horvath’s Parts of a World at Lori Bookstein Fine Art was one of those exhibitions.

The painting just inside the front door--my favorite in the show-- with the full work below and a detail below that

At first her paintings look like pure abstraction—woozy grids, trusslike mazes, and a netlike celestial space, all dense with layers of marks and dots. I respond to these paintings emotionally first, formally only after the sensation of them settles in. Closer looking reveals that these are depictions, however attenuated, of places: paths, topographies, pools of light that turnout to be ballparks, of all things. Up close you get pulled in. I’ve included details. There are worlds within her worlds.

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Entering the gallery proper, with a closer view below of the painting on the back wall, and a detail below that


I have no title for this work, but I love it and the detail:
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Swinging around to the right: Afterlife, 2002-2009, dispersed pigment, polymer and collage on canvas, left
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The work for which I have no title, right, is shown in detail below
The layers are topographical and transparent, taking you deep with the visual structure of the painting
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Viewing Horvath's work gives you an opportunity to float above it, to float within it, to peek into and behind space. Clearly she achieved what she set out to do. This is part of her statement from the press release: “I’d like you to see a place as if you are hovering far above it, and at the same time digging in the ground. You are large, then you are small. When you are small you can enter into things. When you are large you can see more.”

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Foreground, Your Blue Loom, for Martin Ramirez, 2001, disperse pigment, ink and polymer on paper on canvas
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Detail below
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A peek into the smaller back gallery. The largest painting, July Mountain, was noted here previously
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By the way, those layers have a neat complement in real life: Horvath’s first solo show with the gallery took place in the gallery’s first show in its new locatioion, on 10th Avenue near 19th Street. Another neat complement: Here’s what I saw when I walked out and looked back at the gallery from across 10th Avenue:

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Marketing Mondays: A Week's Worth of Useful Reading

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Surfing my favorites blogs and websites, I've come across a number of interesting sites that offer some of the same territory as Marketing Mondays. I thought I'd share them with you. Then, reading them over, I decided to add a few related websites and books. This was going to be just a short item, but now it's gone and turned itself into a Marketing Mondays post. Click on titles to access the links.

Artists and Dealers Writing About Art Marketing

Joyce Owens: Artist on Art

This is the blog that inspired the post, so it gets top spot. It's subtitled A Black Woman Artist Speaks. Will You Speak Back? Hell, yeah, Joyce! I just comment on your current post. Owens has an intermittent series going called 21st Century: New Rules for Artists. Check it out. Amid the many cogent ideas is this short one: No Artists = No Galleries. So simple, so true. Spend some time scrolling, as the series is seeded among other interesting posts. Owens is based in Chicago, so she may be introducing you to a whole new territory, too. She gets pride of place in the visuals, above. That's her snapping a self portrait. I pulled it from her website

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Morena Media

Subtitled The Artist's Business Digest, it serves as both a digest of business articles useful to artists (disclaimer: Marketing Mondays has been mentioned), and articles by the editor, Karen Miranda Augustine. She won't coddle you. "These are the facts: we live in the 21st century. If you're not on-line, you don't exist," she says in a recent post, Off-Line and Left Behind. And check out her blogroll for art business and marketing sites. Augustine is based in Toronto, which explains the funny spelling of words like favourite and colour.

Edward Winkleman Blog
Subtitled, art/politics/gossip/tough love--and covering every one of those topics--the blog also reaches out to the artists in his readership. Yes, I've mentioned this blog before, but good information bears repeating. Winkleman's informative series, Advice for Artists Seeking Gallery Representation, was culled from his many posts as a stand-alone section. His book, How to Start and Run a Commercial Gallery is also very helpful to artists who wish to know how to connect with the folks who are starting and running those galleries. I wrote about it here.

Non Profits

New York Foundation for the Arts

NYFA, for short, is a non-profit that helps artists in all kinds of ways. Related to this post are its Business of Art articles. Click here for the live-linked list.

I'm sure there are others in this category. Fill me in.

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Business

Art Market Monitor

As its title says it's about the art business, which is different from artists dealing with business issues. Still, it's full of news that artists will find useful: who's stopping where on the curator go round (if you want to get your work before curators, you'd better know who and where they are); market sales, auction news, the diamond market, art theft. It's not what you would call fun reading, but if you're going to put your art out there, you might as well know what there is. It's edited by Marion Maneker.

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The Art Newspaper

The hardcopy newspaper has a digital edition, which you can access online. You can even subscribe for free. Its content is at the nexus of art business, artists, and art, so it's easier reading that the strictly business sites. It even has five years of Art Basel Miami Beach special issues in downloadable PDF format.

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Lindsay Pollock Art Market Views

More on the art market. One sidebar gives you a link to Pollock's own stories. Another gives you the headlines of stories Pollock has culled from the news. Did you know, for instance, that the Velvet Painting Museum has closed?

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Books

I've written about these volumes in previous posts. But since we're talking Marketing, and it's a new year, I'm mentioning them again.
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The Artist's Guide: How To Make A Living Doing What You Love by Jackie Battenfield. This is a great book with eminently useful info for building and sustaining a career in art. Battenfield talked to art pros from all over the country (disclaimer: including me), and what she couldn't fit into the book, she put into her website, published as Reality Check Interviews. I interviewed Battenfield here and wrote about the book here. If you can afford just one book in this category, this is the one. But since books are a deductible business expense, I say spring for these others, too:

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Art/Work: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber, published in 2009. Bhandari runs the gallery at Mixed Greens in Chelsea. Melber is a lawyer who runs the Art Law Blog. Both are deeply supportive of artists. The layout features the authors' text bookended by related and supporting quotes from artists, dealers, curators. It covers all the current issues, from Art Fairs to Courtesy Discounts to the nuts and bolts of preparing, pricing and promoting yourself and your work..
Note: Bhandari and Winkleman will participate in Blog It!, a panel discussion in Manhattan this Friday, January 15. Seating is free but you must RSVP to attend.

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I'd Rather be in the Studio: The Artist's No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion by Alyson B. Stanfield, published in 2007, offers solid, well-organized advice from a Midwest-based professional who has been a museum curator and is now a business coach. The focus here is squarely on promoting your career, not on the larger topic of the career itself. You might also check out Stanfield's s ArtBizBlog, subtitle: For the business of being an artist.

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Do you know of other useful publications? Post the info in the Comments section.

Convoluted Connections

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James Siena, Kinked Non-Slice, second version, 2008, app. 20 x 16 inches

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I saw this small painting of James Siena's at the Pace Wildenstein booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. I thought of it again when Laura Moriarty, an who lives upstate, sent me some images of her new work, visceral sculptures made with textured sheets of pigmented wax that had been rolled and sliced, sort of like jelly rolls. I liked the visual connection. Then I mentally related them to a painting of Sharon Horvath's, which I'd seen in her show in November at Lori Bookstein Fine Art in Chelsea.

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Next week I'll post installation images from Horvath's exhibition, but for now let me make a convoluted connection between and among these three works.

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Laura Moriarty, Skerry, 2009, pigmented beeswax, detail from an installation 20 x 30 feet. Image from the artist's website

Sharon Horvath, July Mountain, 2009, disperse pigment, ink and polymer on paper on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
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Looking Back

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Now that the end-of-year lists have been published, everyone is looking ahead to what’s looming for 2010. Not me. I’m going to spend the month in retrospection. The Miami extravaganza aside, I normally post two or three times a week, which means I don't get to write about everything that interests me. So this month I’m going to dedicate my blog time to a look back at all the art I wish I'd been able to squeeze into the year: some gallery and museums shows, a great public sculpture, and a few studio visits.

To start, I’m going to look at my own favorite posts. Here's what I chose out of the 172 I wrote (though to tell the truth, I liked them all). Click on the titles to access the posts.
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Cold? Come Stand Next to These

A stretch of frigid weather inspired this winter post, in which a suggestion of licking flames and glowing embers from Teresita Fernandez, Julian Jackson and others, even Fra Angelico, heated up the room, at least conceptually.

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Here, Morris Louis at Paul Kasmin Gallery

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Armory Week: Salvage Operation


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Left, Sarah Braman at Museum 52, New York; at the Armory Fair
Right, Joy Garnett, Unmonumental 126

For this post I got to be both reporter and curator, pairing the trash-into-art sculptures I saw throughout the fairs with photos from Joy Garnett's Unmonumental series. Big thanks to Joy for letting me pull images from her blog, Newsgrist. And a first for me: I was able to limit my Armory coverage to three posts.

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Stephen Haller: Remembering Morandi

My dear friend and mentor remembers his good friend and mentor. It took 40 years for the story to get told, and I’m pleased to be the one who got Stephen to tell it over the course of two months and several interviews
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Here, Stephen in the viewing room of his gallery holding a book on Morandi. That frontispiece photo of the artist was shot by Stephen in Morandi's home in Bologna in the 60s


Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded at MoMA

MoMA's second-floor drawing galleries often have the best shows in the house: thoughful and generally small in scale, the very opposite of the bombastic blockbusters upstairs. And because the work is typically organized from work in the collection, photography is allowed. (I posted about the Geo/Metric show there in 2008.)
Here, work by Eva Hesse, foreground, and Dorothea Rockburne

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What I Saw This Summer

In this eight-parter, which started in August, I wrote about the art I saw in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Boston, and Brunswick, Maine; in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; up the Northway in Washington County, and then farther north in Montreal.
Here, Grace DeGennaro's studio in Brunswick, Maine
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Getting High in West Chelsea

My running route used to take me under a rusted hulk of railroad overpass, a home to pigeons that paved the sidewalk below with their droppings. What a difference now! The newly renovated High Line is a park is where you come to stroll and look out at the Hudson.
Here, the tracks planted with native wildflowers
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Trees!

Trunks, branches and roots were everywhere in evidence. I saw plenty of arboreal attitude in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Miami. I looked to metaphors to explain the abundance. Are we putting down roots for stability? Branching out? Out on a limb? All of the above?

Here, Sandra Allen, Ballast, 2009, graphite on 15 sheets of paper; at Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston

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Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009

It’s my annual obsession, er, opus. The thematic posts were the most interesting because they went beyond reporting on the who, what, where and allowed me to begin to make visual sense of an event that brought together some 1000+ dealers and 10,000+ artists.
Here, from Working the Angles: Robert Mangold at the Pace Wildenstein booth, at ABMB

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Marketing Mondays

The series in 2009 comprised 43 posts. I’m kind of amazed that I found enough to write about--and the time to write about it. Thanks for your responses, which really move the posts along. The first post for 2010 is already up. The sidebar lists them all, with links.
Here, Jackie Battenfield signing her book The Artist's Guide. And guess who's quoted in it?

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A chance to write about my own projects

In this down economy I decided to focus instead on group shows. I wrote about them--not as a reviewer, of course, but as a participant. I also got to be a sho’nuff curator, for BlogPix, and moderated two blogger panels.
Here, an installation of my Silk Road paintings in Slippery When Wet at Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn

These are links to some of my projects this year:
. Blogpix, the Show
. Blogpix, the Panel
. Art Bloggers at Art Miami
. GeoMetrics at Gallery 128
. Summer Guest House at Marcia Wood Gallery
. The L’eau Down: Slippery When Wet
. A First Look at DM Contemporary

Marketing Mondays: How Do You Define "Emerging Artist" And Other Career Levels?

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Cartoon by Eric Gelber

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Artist Pam Farrell posed this question recently: "How do you define 'emerging artist'?”

A decade ago, emerging signified an artist who was getting some attention—emerging from the pack, as it were, and onto the radar screen of curators, dealers and critics. There were a number of indicators that an artist was emerging: inclusion in good group shows, positive reviews, a well-received solo, maybe sales to a few good collectors, and some word-of-mouth buzz.

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By that standard, the newly celebrated Carmen Herrera would be an emerging artist. "After six decades of very private painting, Ms. Herrera sold her first artwork five years ago, at 89," reports Deborah Sontag in a recent New York Times article about the artist. Hmm. Does that make Herrera, after a lifetime at the easel, an emerging artist? Hardly.

Germane to this issue, a parallel, more democratic definition has evolved. Emerging now seems to mean beginning. That's how students and professors use the term at the various institutions where I have taught or visited. By this standard, all newly minted artists (even art students) are emerging. This definition may not appeal to the hierarchic tendencies of the art world, but it does make more sense. And for the 25-year old who emerges bigtime? How about lucky? Or well-connected? Or child of famous parents?

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Since we're on the topic, when an emerging artist become just a regular artist? And when does one become a mid-career artist? Is a decade too soon? How about after a couple of decades of pushing that ball up the hill, whether or not recognition is part of the ball? And what of the artists who take time away from showing to earn an income, have a baby, travel: Does the clock reset? Are they re-emerging when they start showing again or can they just be artists?

When does a mid-career artist become a late-career artist? (Here I’m thinking of Oriane Stender’s comment a while back on Ed Winkleman’s blog: "Who knows how long we're going to live? I could be mid-career right now, or even late-career. Or my career could go nowhere until after I'm dead. Would that make me pre-career?") Oriane has her tongue firmly in cheek but she raises interesting issues.

How would you define emerging and mid-career? And if you're on a roll, thrown in late-career as well. Consider this an open thread for the first Marketing Mondays post of the new year.

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Special thanks to Eric Gelber for letting me include his cartoon in this post. Visit Eric's blog, eageageag

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