REPRESENTATION VS MERCHANT-IZING
As a follow-up to my prior post, someone asked me to clarify as regards the core number of artists PFA would represent. Specifically, said someone asked, "You mean to represent more than three artists, don't you?"
It's a question that touches on more than just the obvious question. It's certainly true that galleries generally represent more than three artists....for several reasons, including how the more artists that a gallery represents, the more works become available to be offered for sale. Of course, increasing the number of artists risk diluting the gallery's ability to adequately represent (i.e. market) each individual artist. But even the galleries (I know) who try to limit their artists to a group for which they can both make decent sales and also effectively promote represent about ten artists, at a minimum.
I'm thinking of full representation of three to six artists (in the beginning) because of my desire to do a really good job with "representing" those artists. I actually expect to show a lot of artists -- via curated programs or group exhibits -- but in terms of a core group, I want to start small. And I want to start small because I want to ensure I do an appropriate job as the artist's dealer.
When a dealer commits to represent an artist, I don't think the dealer should view their job as primarily setting up exhibition schedules in their galleries. They should be engaging in a wide variety of activities to spread the word about the artists' accomplishments -- whether it's to contact other curators or galleries or art reviewers or collectors (rather than waiting for collectors to come to their gallery). It's much harder to offer this scope of representation if you're representing 30 vs 3 artists.
Of course, the matter is more complicated than time constraints. A lot of dealers let their egos -- or need to make money -- get in the way of maximizing their effectiveness for the artists they represent. For example, New York may no longer be the center of the art world but it still is good for an artist to exhibit there. Many non-New York galleries will not explore New York venues for their artists because they don't wish to lose sales or the artists in general.
I read a lot of artist resumes, in part because I like to see the ways that artists live. What I've noticed is that many artists who started young (e.g. in their twenties) hit their 60s and above with a thickly-paged resume. These are artists who should be considered "successful" just by virtue of having been able to live lives as artists. So, if you go through their list of exhibitions, you'll see that they may even get to the point of having a minimum of 1-2 solo shows a year and participations in 2-5 group exhibits annually. Yet, these artists also will still be relatively unknown. Of course, only the very few ever get to be famous in the arts. But I do wonder if artists could have made better decisions in terms of how/where they show their work -- though this is easier said than done as most artists probably would always just want to exhibit. But this is where the effective dealer comes in -- the dealer who knows his/her/hir task should be able to advise the artist on the significances in venues so that each decision on where/how is based on another (or additional) reason than just to be able to cite that exhibit on one's resume.
A Poem can be about everything. PFA, therefore, doesn't see the need to base its mode of operations between how, in the art world, there can be differences in how the commercial galleries vs. "alternative art spaces" versus nonprofit venues and so on operate. For its core group of represented artists, PFA intends to conduct representation effectively such that the artists' reputations and prices will rise (even if it later means those artists will leave PFA for "bigger" galleries). At the same time, PFA's decisions will transcend commerce -- and poetry as its backbone is about as good a check will be to ensure the primacy of aesthetic concerns. Poetry may be priceless but there ain't much money in it.
It's a question that touches on more than just the obvious question. It's certainly true that galleries generally represent more than three artists....for several reasons, including how the more artists that a gallery represents, the more works become available to be offered for sale. Of course, increasing the number of artists risk diluting the gallery's ability to adequately represent (i.e. market) each individual artist. But even the galleries (I know) who try to limit their artists to a group for which they can both make decent sales and also effectively promote represent about ten artists, at a minimum.
I'm thinking of full representation of three to six artists (in the beginning) because of my desire to do a really good job with "representing" those artists. I actually expect to show a lot of artists -- via curated programs or group exhibits -- but in terms of a core group, I want to start small. And I want to start small because I want to ensure I do an appropriate job as the artist's dealer.
When a dealer commits to represent an artist, I don't think the dealer should view their job as primarily setting up exhibition schedules in their galleries. They should be engaging in a wide variety of activities to spread the word about the artists' accomplishments -- whether it's to contact other curators or galleries or art reviewers or collectors (rather than waiting for collectors to come to their gallery). It's much harder to offer this scope of representation if you're representing 30 vs 3 artists.
Of course, the matter is more complicated than time constraints. A lot of dealers let their egos -- or need to make money -- get in the way of maximizing their effectiveness for the artists they represent. For example, New York may no longer be the center of the art world but it still is good for an artist to exhibit there. Many non-New York galleries will not explore New York venues for their artists because they don't wish to lose sales or the artists in general.
I read a lot of artist resumes, in part because I like to see the ways that artists live. What I've noticed is that many artists who started young (e.g. in their twenties) hit their 60s and above with a thickly-paged resume. These are artists who should be considered "successful" just by virtue of having been able to live lives as artists. So, if you go through their list of exhibitions, you'll see that they may even get to the point of having a minimum of 1-2 solo shows a year and participations in 2-5 group exhibits annually. Yet, these artists also will still be relatively unknown. Of course, only the very few ever get to be famous in the arts. But I do wonder if artists could have made better decisions in terms of how/where they show their work -- though this is easier said than done as most artists probably would always just want to exhibit. But this is where the effective dealer comes in -- the dealer who knows his/her/hir task should be able to advise the artist on the significances in venues so that each decision on where/how is based on another (or additional) reason than just to be able to cite that exhibit on one's resume.
A Poem can be about everything. PFA, therefore, doesn't see the need to base its mode of operations between how, in the art world, there can be differences in how the commercial galleries vs. "alternative art spaces" versus nonprofit venues and so on operate. For its core group of represented artists, PFA intends to conduct representation effectively such that the artists' reputations and prices will rise (even if it later means those artists will leave PFA for "bigger" galleries). At the same time, PFA's decisions will transcend commerce -- and poetry as its backbone is about as good a check will be to ensure the primacy of aesthetic concerns. Poetry may be priceless but there ain't much money in it.
posted by EILEEN @ 8:03 PM
<< Home