..
If you could ask a dealer, curator or critic one question, what would it be?
This is a short post from me today, but I hope many of you will respond so that I can create a researched post (or series of posts) later this summer. Posting anonymously is fine.
17 comments:
I would ask "what is the worst thing an artist could do when approaching you for possible representation, inclusion in a show or getting their work reviewed." And then I would hope the answer would not make me cringe because of the ring of familiarity.
I'd ask "how are you going to market my art"
How do I find your contact information, what are you looking for and how do you find new art?
My question would be to a dealer.
What factors do you consider before representing an artist?
Where do I find your contact information, what are you looking for in art, how do you find new artists?
For a dealer: I am not well-known. How can capture your attention?
Dear Dealer, would you represent an Artist Who's work you dont like, but acknowledge is very good.
Are you smart enough to take your personel taste out of the equation?
I am a new artist. What steps do I need to take to successfully show, market and sell my work?
For a dealer:
What is your strategy for finding clients to buy the art work you sell?
My question is similar to Lori's. I would wonder what kind of game plane they have for selling my work. Do they have specific collectors in mind? Will they contact them? Is there a limit to how long they would show me if I didn't sell enough? What are the expectations from my work? I find a lot of these concerns to be very grey areas and if a gallery has been in business a long time, they really shouldn't be. I've learned that galleries are not just walls to be filled. The best ones have a lot behind the scenes.
I’d ask the dealer:
„How would you define success?“
I’d ask the curator:
“Tell me something about the exhibition your dreaming of.”
I’d ask the critic:
“What’s more encouraging for you: to be loved or to be feared?”
Do you consider your job to sell art or to sell art AND develop the artist's career through introducing the work to curators, art fairs, etc.?
And, when an artist is contacted by a potential collector online, and both you and the gallerist are marketing online, how do you determine whose client it is? When I have had clients contact me online, I have sent their name to the dealer and asked if this was their client. But then when I called about getting a piece to send to a collector over seas they got all bent out of shape thinking it was their client (it was my ex-boyfriend). I want to respect my dealer, but it is also problematic for me to turn a client over to the dealer, because they have the work of many artists they can sell, so they might derail the sale of my work by offering the work of someone else. How do you sort out this issue so neither of you feel exploited and both of you are doing what you can to further your mutual interests.
I"d ask the dealer "I notice that your gallery artists are mostly in their early 20s. Do you discourage older artists?"
What advantages do you have that makes the time you spend promoting my work more valuable than the time I could spend promoting my work?
To dealers: the art industry is just retail, with delusions of grandeur. Discuss.
To critics and curators: Duchamps legacy - providing an excuse for thousands of talentless "artists" to pass off their own feeble variations of "readymades" as art. Slit your wrists, then discuss (or vice versa, I don't care).
Does education, more significantly the type of art education one pursues, matter? Are artists trained at places such as the Art Students League at a disadvantage compared to those with a BFA/MFA when seeking gallery representation? Why?
Post a Comment