Ginger Blog

Although this is primarily about gallery dealers, much of the information and advice and most of the perspectives and views are also applicable to people in other arts-related occupations, including art consultants, curators, critics, administrators, collectors, and artists. Some of my impressions and characterizations might seem severe, but it is not my intention to throw all of the blame for the ills and injustices in the art world on dealers, curators, and the like. Artists must also accept responsibility for the way things are, mainly because most artists, overtly, covertly, or inadvertently, participate (or try to participate) in the dog-eat-dog system. Few are trying to change it.

If I had my way, I would replace commercial galleries with a system in which artists exhibited work in their studios and sold it directly to the public. But such a system could work only if artists acquired enough self-confidence not to need gallery validations, and if the public, likewise, had the self-confidence necessary to buy work without gallery validation. Since there is a very remote chance that these events will occur in my lifetime, the next best thing for changing the system is to regulate the business practices of galleries nationwide, including policies affecting commissions, discounts, insurance, payments to artists, and the use of contracts. For the time being, since the gallery system is still very much intact and is virtually unregulated, the following opinions, advice, and observations are aimed at helping artists acquire more business savvy, more control over their careers, and more control in their relationships with those who are currently running the show.

Artists are constantly bombarded with erroneous, irresponsible, and unethical advice about the art world and art galleries. While some adv ice is exchanged through word of mouth, much of it is disseminated through articles in trade publications. Some of these articles are written by well-meaning but naive individuals who are connected to the art world in some capacity; others are written by less-than-well intentioned art-world figures whose motives are self-serving. For example, in an article from Art in America, a dealer assures readers that “a minority of dealers are strictly concerned with commercial success.” However, he then condones the greedy practice of awarding dealers a commission on all studio sales.

An artist may on occasion sell a work directly from his studio to a friend or to a collector he has known before his gallery affiliation. It is the artist’s ethical obligation to report such transactions to his dealer and to remit a reduced commission, commonly 20 percent, to compensate the dealer for a work he cannot offer under the usual terms of their agreement.

Another dealer advises that the fastest track into the art world is to work for a famous artist. A political scientist cum art collector encourages beginners to exhibit only in “small” places when he writes in American Artist, “Begin building your career at smaller local or regional galleries of good repute. It is too bruising to try the larger galleries in major art centres’.” An arts administrator encourages artists to retreat if they are rejected by galleries, advising, “If your first search is unsuccessful, wait a year or two and try again.” And a career consultant to artists states that the reason it is important to dress presentably is “so that you give the impression that you’re making money somehow, presumably through your artwork.

Artists also give each other peculiar and bad advice. For example, in a book profiling contemporary artists, an artist discusses how she uses sex to get ahead: “I’ve been propositioned a lot: ‘I’ll give you a show if you sleep with me.’ It happens often. Would I do it for a show? Now I would, but when I was younger I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t because I was a jerk.” And another artist tells beginners that “one of the necessary qualities of being an artist is to not expect an awful lot, to be somewhat dense about any thoughts of what you will get out of being an artist.”

If you believe everything you read you would conclude that, in order to find a gallery and succeed in the art world, you must sleep with dealers, and dress as though you have a lot of money. You should work for a famous artist, and when beginning your career, you should have low expectations and exhibit in small, local galleries. You should avoid large cities at all costs. And if you are rejected from galleries, you should retreat and wait a year or two before trying again!

Although in composite form these recommendations sound very silly, many artists, unfortunately, believe the advice to be true.

Successful artists such as Doug Hyde and Rolf Harris seem to have it easy, but they too were once struggling artists who had the same concerns and worries we all do.