Marketing Mondays: CV vs Resume vs Bio

CV? Résumé? Bio?

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After two requests in the past four months to trim my résumé (“edit,” is the diplomatic term), I’m wondering why we spend the first half of our careers working to build it up only to be asked, ever so kindly, to cut it down. I’ve trimmed a christmas tree. I’ve trimmed hedges. I’ve trimmed my toenails and my hair. But I’m feeling like I want to hold onto my long, luxurious résumé. I’ve worked hard to grow this thing!

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One dealer I work with said, “No collector wants to read through that long list.” Another wants my résumé to be the same length as the other artists for the gallery book. “We’ll have the long version for anyone who’s interested.” Uh, I guess that won’t be the collectors.

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However, after researching the topic for this post, I see that those dealers are not out of line with their request for a short résumé. According to the College Art Association’s guidelines for visual artists: “It is meant to be short and simple to review . . .one to four pages.”.
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Here are a few definitions that should clarify our work summaries:.
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Curriculum Vitae, also known as a cv: A summary of one's education, professional history, and job qualifications. (I love this: It’s fom the Latin, the course—i.e. racetrack—of life).

The College Art Association, writing for visual artists, describes the “long cv” as “a framework on which to build” your professional academic history. Visual artists, take note: "Please remember that there is a difference between a curriculum vitae and the artist résumé. The curriculum vitae is a record of all of your professional activities and is intended for use in academic situations. The artist résumé is an abbreviated document that is used in conjunction with commercial galleries, the search for exhibition opportunities, and certain grant applications. It is typically one to four pages in length.".
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Résumé: A brief account of one's professional or work experience and qualifications. It is essentially a short cv but with an emphasis on exhibition, award and biliography as opposed to academic issues such as teaching and committees. The CAA offers guidelines here.
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Biography, or bio: A brief narrative account of one’s life and career. Most artists and dealers tend to use bio and résumé interchangeably, so it’s a good idea, if someone requests your “bio,” to confirm whether they are looking for a narrative or the easier-to-peruse résumé..

Here’s a great example of an artist’s bio: "Andrea Polli is a digital media artist living in New Mexico. Her work addresses issues related to science and technology in contemporary society. She is interested in global systems, the real time interconnectivity of these systems, and the effect of these systems on individuals. Polli's work with science, technology and media has been presented widely in over 100 presentations, exhibitions and performances internationally, has been recognized by numerous grants, residencies and awards including UNESCO. Her work has been reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Art News, NY Arts and others. She has published two book chapters, several audio CDs, DVDs and many papers in print including MIT Press and Cambridge University Press journals."

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As you can see, this opening paragraph includes elements of the artist statement and résumé. You can read more here.

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Next week, we can talk about the résumé itself—at what point does “Education” become less important than “Solo Exhibitions,” for instance? And how do midcareer artists deal with the age issue? But for now . . .

Over to you: Do you keep long and short versions of a résumé? If you teach, do you also maintain the conventional cv? And are you confounded when faced with a request to write a bonafide bio?

My New Best Friends

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Joanne Mattera, Diamond Life, 2010, encaustic on panel, 17 x 17 inches

See an installation shot here (scroll down until you come to it)

I am really excited about my diamonds. No, not those shiny compressed carbon things. My new paintings. Of course I was aware of the shape (Noland's canvases are classic), but it's something else again when you take your own work, skew it, and see how the visual energy changes as those corners start pushing into the space beyond their borders as well as reorienting your attention to the field within in.

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And wouldn’t you know that as soon as I turned my square 45 degrees, I started to see a ton of other art out there with the same skew, as well as rhomboids with varying degrees of elongation. I love when that happens.

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Say hello to some of my gems and a few of my new best friends.

Working installation on my studio wall, of Soie, gouache on Arches 140 hot-press, each 22 x 30 inches, with a few individual shots below:
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Soie 14


Soie 4


Soie 22

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I saw most of the following works in a span of a couple of days while I was making my rounds in Chelsea, but to curate the post more fully I photographed a Brancusi and a Mondrian while at MoMA, pulled two from the Internet, and went back into my archives for another.
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Brent Birnbaum, from the exhibition Used Books, organized by Ryan Frank, at the Curatorial Research Lab at Edward Winkleman through October 9
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Polly Apfelbaum, Off Colour, an installation at D'Amelio Terras, through October 23.
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James Lahey, installation view of Guido's Rhombus, at J. Cacciola, through October 31.
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Sol Lewitt at James Cohan (it's been up in the back gallery for a few months)
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Ken Sofer, Twaek, 2010, acrylic on wood, 29.5 x23.5 inches at the Howard Scott Gallery 25th Anniversary Exhibition, through October 16.
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Larry Zox, acrylic on canvas, in the back gallery at the Stephen Haller Gallery
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Don Voisine, Weave, 2009, oil on wood, 16 x 26 inches, via the McKenzie Fine Art website (Read my report of the artist's 2009 solo here.).


Brancusi, Endless Column (Version 1), 1918, oak, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City
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Grace DeGennaro, gouache on okawara paper, from her exhibition Return to the Source at the Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Mass., last year. (Read my report here)
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Ken Weathersby, 179 (twn L and R), 2010, acrylic paint film with removed area over wood scaffold over linen, each 24 x 19 shown together
(I shot this photo during a recent studio visit which will be the subject of a future post. Click here for better images on the artist's website)
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Julie Karabenick, Composition 92, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 45 x 45 inches; image from David Richard Contemporary Art, Santa Fe.

Mondrian, Tableau 1: Losenge with Four Lines and Gray, 1926, oil on canvas, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City

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Lines and Curves

Two current exhibitions take us through very different journeys with color and geometry: Archeo, Kim Uchiyama at Lohin Geduld (up through October 9) , and Recent Paintings, Suzan Frecon at David Zwirner (up through the 30^th). .
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Kim Uchiyama at Lohin Geduld: View on the wall to the right as you enter. The rhythm of the paintings is heightened by their uniform size and the spacing of each work in the installation ..

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Kim Uchiyama shows easel-size paintings, all 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas. Her approach is direct: She uses the format of the stripe to create color relationships. These are not Gene Davis stripes of flat uninflected color, nor are they Sean Scully bands of heavy impasto. They are Uchiyama stripes: varied-width bands of color, luminous and chromatically resonant, applied horizontally—sometimes with a light and flat touch, other times with a heavily laden brush. I don’t know whether or not these paintings began as sketches, but it’s clear Uchiyama developed them intuitively. Indeed, not only have the paintings been built up, hue over hue with hints of color previously laid down, they have also been scraped back selectively, offering "overheard" glimpses of studio conversations that have taken place between the artist and work the over time..

.Swinging around counter clockwise, this is the view that faces you when you enter

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Continuing counterclockwise, with the support column as your marker, you see the work on the wall to the left of the entryway. I've taken you around this way because I want to show you the painting just to the right of the column . . .

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Stratum, 2008-10, oil on canvas

All of the paintings in this show offer glimpses of their archeology (and I like them all), but I happened to have a good detail of this one: .

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Uchiyama has cannily combined the modernist stripe with the most suggestive element of landscape painting: the horizon. It's not the line itself that suggests landscape but her handling of the view into and beyond it by means of the layering and scraping. What's more, she has compressed into each painting any number of views from different times of day, of ocean and land, and of the light or darkness that always lies tantalizingly just beyond. Al di la, the Italians call it, over there. It's also another way of saying heaven.

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At Zwirner, Susan Frecon shows large paintings, nine feet high, which are composed of two rectangular panels placed one above the other. The result is a format longer than it is wide, with a horizontal that bisects each painting. Here that bisecting line can read as a horizon, so it’s a struggle to see beyond the "mountains" and "lakes" of her curved forms. I don’t want landscape associations to get in the way of her reductive compositions—as everything I have read about the work tells me that is not her intention—but with their earth colors and mineral pigments, the paintings are very much rooted to the notion of terrestrial.

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While her hues have a deep richness, Frecon is not a colorist. In part because the often high gloss of the oil requires you to move around each painting to find a suitable viewing spot, there’s a lot of physical interaction with each work. When you do connect, it’s not ultimately about the hue but about the relationships of the curve to that insistent horizontal, as well as to the varying curves of the arcs themselves. Color heightens those relationships, of course.

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Above: View as you enter the gallery with composition in four colors 2 in the foreground . . .
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. . . with a closer look, below, below at the painting on the far wall:
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.pompeiian persian, 2010

All the works are oil on panel, 108 x 87 3/8 inches, composed of two panels .

View into the far gallery; image from the gallery website
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This is difficult work to photograph. That brown painting in the distance is actually the painting posted individually above, and I'm pretty sure that the one just to its right in this image is, soforouge, which was included in the recent Whitney Biennial


This painting, cathedral series, variation 6, 2010, is on the wall facing the painting that opens this section. You can see its subtleties better in the image below:
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.composition in four colors, 1, 2009

From the main gallery, you walk through this hallway to get to the viewing room where the small paintings are. A tour of the exhibition on the gallery website may help orient you better than these few images can
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I’m impressed by the muscle and intent of the large paintings, but it’s to the small studies that I am most compellingly drawn. So intimate they are, so completely at one with color, shape and scale. I love them.

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Above and below, cathedral series, variation 4, 2009, oil on wood panel, 14 7/8 x 12 x 1 inches
 

Marketing Mondays: The Academic Gallery, Part 2

Academic Galleries, Part 1

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No, this is not a museum gallery or a bluechip commercial space. It's the OSilas Gallery at Concordia College in Bronxville, Westchester County, about 15 miles from Manhattan

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In Part 1 last week: Our gallery directors discussed the value to artists of an academic gallery show, and they talked about how they select artists for exhibition. This week they offer advice and observation.
Our experts: Patricia Miranda, artist, educator, and director of the OSilas Gallery at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York; Jane Allen Nodine, artist, professor of art, and director of the Curtis R. Harley Gallery at the University of South Carolina Upstate, in Spartanburg, South Carolina
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What advice would you offer artists thinking about submitting work to an academic gallery?Nodine: Visit academic galleries in your area and whenever you travel. Look online to see the reputation and exhibition history of an academic gallery, and if it appeals to you, look at their submission guidelines. Introduce yourself to gallery directors and put them on your mailing lists. Like their commercial counterparts, academic galleries have particular goals or a mission, so not all college and university galleries will be a viable option for you. You have to do your homework, but it can pay back in numerous constructive ways.

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Miranda: I really do look at work that artists send. Artists should keep in mind that we work far in advance and are more likely to plan thematic group shows, although this is not always the case. Organized, professional packages really do make a huge difference, and in addition to a regular submission packet, I like to be updated about ongoing work. Curators often like to watch an artist’s work for a while before choosing to exhibit it, to see an artist grow and develop, and to see if that artist is a good fit for the gallery or a particular show.
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How does the academic gallery fit in with the local/regional art scene?
Miranda: Concordia is less than 15 miles from Manhattan, so we are surrounded by a wealth of culture and art. We exhibit local as well as regional and international artists, and we're always striving to make connections with local institutions, such as the Hudson River Museum, as well as local arts organizations and community groups. This past summer we mounted a historical exhibition about WWI and II veterans from Bronxville, Eastchester and Tuckahoe—and the West Point Jazz Band performed to a large community response. I think following a show of contemporary women artists from South Asia [the major spring exhibition] with a regional historical show is one of the unique things a gallery in an academic institution can do.
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.Nodine: We are a state university located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, about an hour south of Charlotte, North Carolina. There are three private colleges in our city, and each has one or two galleries with scheduled exhibitions. There is a community art museum, several commercial galleries, an artist-in-residence program with alternative space gallery, and an artist cooperative with exhibition space, which is a rather active art scene for a city of about 40,000. Since we are not tied to the sales of work, we are freer to venture into the margins. Viewers know there will be educational support materials to accompany exhibits, or the artist will be present to speak about the work. All of the galleries in town know each other, and I find we typically complement actives in some manner.
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Miranda: I always think of Holland Cotter's article for The New York Times, Why University Museums Matter. He wrote: "University museums are unlike other museums . . . They are, before all else, teaching instruments intended for hands-on use by students and scholars. As such, they often house objects that are considered of second- and third-tier value at auction but that fill out a deep and detailed account of cultural history."
.I love this description, that we exhibit work which offers an important ingredient to our cultural conversation. We are more grassroots, more responsive, perhaps, to the idea that art is like any other language--something that needs time, needs nurturing and education--and that a lot of work has value in this dialogue beyond the blockbuster show or simply a monetary one. Art is after all, about a dialogue between the artists, their environment and experience, and the world around them. I believe academic galleries do justice to that conversation.
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Of course, you don't want to inundate curators with info, email or phone calls. We generally have extremely an small staff covering an enormous amount of ground, and it can seem invasive to send too much. But I genuinely do like to get exhibition announcements, and I will try and see shows when I can. I do keep artists in mind for long periods of time, and keeping me updated is a good way to be sure of that. Also, I always find it interesting when an artist proposes an idea for a thematic exhibition that is larger than his or her own work, an idea for a show that might open up a new subject or explore an old one in a new way. Most artists don't curate their own shows, but an artist's good idea might result in an exhibition including their work. As curators we are always listening for new ideas. In 2011 we will have an eco-arts exhibition, exploring new ways artists use their work to speak about the environment, a show that came about through such conversations with artists.
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Update 10.11.10:  Read about Nancy Azara's show at the University College Art Gallery of Fairleigh Dickinson University. Click here for article and pics.

Above: Nancy Azara creating work for her show, Spirit Taking Form: Rubbings, Tracings and Carvings," at Fairleight Dickingson University in Teaneck, New Jersey

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Below, the artist installing one work

So, The Recession is Over

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If the Liu Xiaodong solo at Mary Boone in Chelsea is any indication, the good times are rolling back in. .

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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?

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OK, time to play the first installment of that political game called, Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Christine O'Donnell: I am a Christian but I have "dabbled" in witchcraft. I want to serve in the United States Senate, yet I say things like, "If we're descended from apes, how come they haven't yet evolved into humans?"
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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Note to Dumb Ass: Wicca is an earth-based spirituality that reveres nature, including our evolutionary history. However, there is at least one mama grizzly that has evolved into a human. She wears lipstick and talks to tea bags. You wanna refudiate that?
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Update 10.2.10: No wonder she doesn't want to believe in evolution. She's descended from Bozo the Clown! True story. (Here's how my buddy Chris Rywalt sums it it: "One is a comic performer enacting hilarious and stupid tricks for an uneducated audience, and the other one is Bozo the Clown.")
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Reverend Eddie Long: I lead a megachurch in Atlanta, where I frequently rail that homosexuality is "immoral." Yet here I am photographing myself with my i-Phone while wearing my gym clothes so that I can email the pics to young boys..
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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Note to Hypocrite: Homosexuality is part of the great spectrum of nature. What's "immoral" is telling your congregation one thing and doing another, especially when it (allegedly) involves foisting yourself onto unwilling underage male partners. By the way, the necklace doesn't go with the spandex.
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Senate Minority Leader John Boehner: I am a Republican, which by current action virtually ensures that most people of color will receive a less-than-fair break financially and societally. Yet I myself am a person of color. Orange.
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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Note to A-Hole: There's an "Orange and Proud" group you may wish to join. They're called pumpkins.

Matisse at MoMA

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A wall photo welcomes you to the Matisse show, Radical Reinvention 1913-1917, but there's no photography allowed in the special exhibitions galleries

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This special exhibition, Matisse: Radical Reinvention 1913-1917, covers a period when the artist pared down his canvases—often by scraping back the oil or repeatedly painting over large passages of the image—to arrive at his most precisely geometric and relatively pattern-free compositions. Sometimes I think the museums invent Matisse exhbitions just to bring in visitors (and that’s fine; I’m always happy to see more Matisse) but this exhibition does focus on the manufacture of the image, the process, often accompanied by video and wall text, so that you can see something of the painter’s visual thinking.

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Chief among the metamorphosed paintings of this period is Bathers by a River, below, a large work that initially appears to be comprised of several panels. It's one large canvas, close to 9 by 13 feet. (The Art Institute of Chicago, which presented the exhibition earlier this year, shows the development of the painting here.)

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Bathers by a River, 1909–10, 1913, 1916–17; oil on canvas, 102 1/2 x 154 3/16". The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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I’m not in the habit of shilling for museums, but if you want to see the Matisse show at MoMA—and it’s a show worth seeing—you can get in early if you’re a member. I went at 9:30 on a recent morning, an hour before the museum opened to the general public. There were just a handful of people in the gallery with me. Other times I go to the members' preview evenings. And even if you don’t get in early, you can bypass the timed entries and the lines, which during the recent Marina Abramovic show, sometimes stretched around the block. Just flash your card and walk in. You can get into P.S.1, too. (There are different categories of membership, including an artist’s membership. It’s not listed on the membership page, so you have to ask for it. Be prepared to offer some proof that you’re an artist. I did it so long ago that I forget what I showed them—probably an exhibition announcement. Click here for general info.)

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Radical Reinvention is up through October 11. If you miss it, there's always the Matisse room on the fifth floor. If you're new to MoMA, it's like walking through Janssons to get to that gallery. Here are a couple of works from there (photographing the permanent collection is allowed, sans flash):

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Dance (1), 1909, oil on canvas

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The Red Studio, 1911, oil on canvas
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Marketing Mondays: The Academic Gallery, Part 1

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Early in my career I showed in a number of academic galleries. In addition to the wonderful opportunity they gave a then-emerging artist like me to exhibit as a solo artist, I learned what it took to create an exhibition: how to plan my time in the studio, how to think about the relationship of the work to the space in which it would go, how to prepare the supporting materials—resume, statement, eventually brochures and catalogs. Crucially, at the other end, by working with and watching the gallery director, I came to understand what it took to get my work onto the wall: how to plan a cohesive installation, how to actually install it, how to promote the exhibition and then follow up with the press. At the openings I learned how to talk about myself and my work. .

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A 2007 solo of my work, curated by Leonie Bradbury and Shana Dumont, for an art college in Massachusetts

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Armed with this information and experience, I then focused on commercial galleries and museums and didn’t look back. Until recently. I’ve come to appreciate the importance of academic galleries, not only for emerging artists but for artists at all levels of their career.

I’ll give you a few specifics. In 2004 I had a solo show at the Winfisky Gallery of Salem State College in Massachusetts, just north of Boston. Benjamin Gross, the gallery director, gave me free reign, so I proposed Ten Years of Encaustic Painting. I’m not likely to get a retrospective at MoMA, so I rounded up a decade's worth of paintings for the show, and Ben and I created a catalog.

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Many good things came from that show and catalog: a small review in the Boston Globe, and a couple of good shows here in New York City—a terrific thematic summer show with a great group of artists at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery, followed by a solo at OK Harris, where I'd had a solo a dozen years earlier, along with another thematic show there. These opportunities came as a result of the catalog and supporting materials I'd sent to the directors.

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Several other academic shows were interspersed among my commercial exhibitions. In 2006, I showed in Luminous Depths, curated by Nancy Einreinhofer, at the Ben Shahn Gallery of Wm. Patterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. It’s a beautiful space. There was a catalog, and work from that show was included in Material Color at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey, a few years later. (See how the dots connect?) Serendipitously, the painter Merrill Wagner and her husband Robert Ryman were at her opening in the adjacent gallery, and many dealers stopped in to see the show. In 2007 I had a lovely small solo at an art college in Massachusetts. I got to show among my peers, and as a result of the show, I traded a good-size painting with a paint manufacturer for a good deal of paint.

Luminous Depths, curated by Nancy Einreinhofer for the Ben Shahn Galleries at Wm. Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey. This panoramic view shows the work of most of the participating artists: Foreground, Sylvia Netzer; clockwise around the gallery: Rachel Friedberg on the left wall, my installation grid on the back wall, Diana Gonzalez Gandolfi and Megan Klim on the right wall

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Below: Netzer in foreground, Gail Gregg on both walls. Read more about the exhibition here

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My Story is Just the Prologue to this Post

Earlier this year I asked the directors of two academic galleries, both within liberal arts institutions, to talk to me about the role of the academic gallery. I was thinking specifically about the value to artists of showing in such venues, but reading their email responses, I realized that the topic is larger than just showing. So this is a two-parter, to be continued next week.
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Our experts: Patricia Miranda, artist, educator, and director of the OSilas Gallery at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York; and Jane Allen Nodine, artist, professor of art, and director of the Curtis R. Harley Gallery at the University of South Carolina Upstate, in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Both directors responded so clearly and informationally that I have decided to run the piece as a Q&A with minimal redaction.

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What do you think the artist gets out of an exhibition at an academic gallery?

Nodine: I schedule exhibitions a year in advance. Artists are selected on the basis of work I have seen, but they are encouraged to develop new work for the show. In some cases an artist may have new or experimental ideas, and I am willing to work with them to realize that new direction. In more monetary or pragmatic terms, we design and print a color announcement that is mailed to about 700 venues across the United States. We sponsor a lecture or gallery talk by the visiting artist, followed by a public reception. We pay each artist a stipend, and our communications office promotes the exhibit in the media. Work can be for sale in our gallery, but I encourage the buyer to work directly with the artist because we take no commission.

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Miranda: The OSilas Gallery does not have a collection; still, it is a museum quality gallery, with a gorgeous space not generally found in such a small institution. Our exhibits offer artists a beautiful space to show work, but also a unique opportunity to introduce themselves and their work to an audience perhaps outside a typical art community. In our last gallery talk, the artists and curator noted how much they enjoyed speaking to people outside their own community, and how interested and engaged people were at what they had to say despite not being familiar with their work. University galleries can introduce artists to the community and vice versa, and make connections that are meaningful to the exhibition and to their work.
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Jane Allen Nodine: "Our gallery mission is to present challenging material that supports the academic programs which are the foundation of the University, and the University mission includes ties to the community and life-long learning. So, by default and by design, I make an effort to integrate these concepts into our schedule our events."
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Patricia Miranda: "Exhibitions in academic institutions are often willing to give artists leeway to explore and develop larger ideas, further their work, and give them a forum for this exploration."

Above, view of the Spring 2010 exhibition, A Delicate Point: Images from a South Asian Diaspora, curated by Miranda and Priyanka Mathew
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A talk during A Delicate Point draws many members of the art community as well as the community at large

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And is there a larger benefit to showing within the institution?

Nodine: Association with an academic venue adds credibility and validation to an artist’s record. We have coordinated exhibits with other departments in the university such as Women’s Studies, Sociology, and International Studies, which can extend into paying workshops or seminars. Also academicians survive on the publication of their research; an exhibit can draw a faculty or grad student to write critically about work, writing that might get published.

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Miranda: I think exhibitions in academic institutions are often willing to give artists leeway to explore and develop larger ideas, further their work, and give them a forum for this exploration. Work that might not be considered for a commercial setting, whether because it is not object-based, does not fill a more commercial purpose or is more conceptual may find a place in an academic setting. That's true, too, for the an artist doing good work but who has yet to be recognized. This has been my experience both as artist and as curator. I think academic galleries are a wonderful place to exhibit work!

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How do you select the artists for your gallery shows?

Nodine: I‘m always on the lookout for art, artists, or topics for exhibitions in the gallery. Someone I met four years ago may not have been selected at that time, but now might be doing just what I need for a particular show. Looking back at the artists I have exhibited, it appears I have personally known about 40 percent. The other 60 percent have come to the gallery in various ways: I have followed their careers, seen work in exhibitions, or had them recommended by another professional. I do get packets and proposals, but I usually follow an artist for a time before I schedule an exhibit. I make selections based on the content and quality of work, and I try to schedule a variety of media and art forms throughout our exhibition season. Our gallery mission is to present challenging material that supports the academic programs which are the foundation of the University, and the University mission includes ties to the community and life-long learning. So, by default and by design, I make an effort to integrate these concepts into our schedule our events.

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Miranda: The OSilas Gallery focuses on a wide range of thematic group exhibitions, connecting the gallery to the larger campus and academic community. I plan the themes for exhibitions, based on ideas I am interested in or ones proposed to me, considering the year’s program as a kind of “year of ideas”. The curator of each exhibition, which might be myself, or someone I have contracted to curate a particular show, chooses artists. I love to look at work sent to me by artists and will keep work on file for possible future shows. On occasion we may do a solo or two-person exhibition, but primarily we mount group shows.

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I plan about two years in advance, so artists who have ideas for exhibitions or who send a package should keep that in mind. It is always good to keep us current with upcoming shows. Even though it can be difficult to respond to every package or request--like most non-profits and commercial spaces we are on a very tight schedule and work with really limited staff--I do keep info and really do look at work that comes in.
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In Part 2: The directors offer advice to artists thinking about submitting work to an academic gallery, and we look at how the academic gallery fits into the larger community.

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Over to you: Have you shown in an academic gallery? Do you direct one? Do you visit academic galleries? Are you interested in showing in one?

The Art Life: Deadbeat Collectors and Rejection

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Coupla short takes today. Maybe they'll make you feel better, maybe they won't. The takeaway: You're not alone.

#1: Think you're the only one waiting for that check?
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Apparently deadbeat collectors abound. Lindsay Pollock, writing in the current issue of The Art Newspaper, says, "Some dealers are having to fight for their money amid growing evidence that certain collectors are taking longer than usual to pay." So, yes, we often wait for that check to pay our bills, but so do dealers.

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Writes Pollock: "Here’s an unhappy scenario: a young gallery, with nearly empty coffers, hasn’t collected payment on six of the seven sales the dealer closed at a June satellite art fair in Basel. The dealer—who paid all fair-related expenses months ago—needs to cover his rent and overheads. He can’t pay the artist, who needs money for his own bills plus materials for an autumn show. To make matters worse, the dealer must remain calm and detached, while trying to extract payment. 'It’s this old-school gentleman thing,' the dealer told me. 'You don’t want to appear desperate.' ”

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I love (i.e. hate) the anecdote of the collector who visits a gallery, sees a painting and declares, "I love that piece! I want it!" The dealer reminds her that she has already bought it, and he has the unpaid invoice to prove it. Read the whole story here.

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#2: A free online show to enter, with entry guaranteed.

The only requirement? The work you submit must have been rejected elsewhere. Everything's posted on the website, and there's a monetary prize for the best rejected work. Better hurry, the deadline is October 8.

In his digital update of the Salon des Refuses, organizer Matt Akehurst says, "It’s really a continuation of my practice that looks at the contextual frame work of the art world. The Rejected Art Award asks the questions: Who will enter? What is rejected? What is bad art or what is good art? And who decides?" So far the New Zealand-based artist has received 215 entries from around the world.