Do Art Galleries Lose money? James Tarmy at Bloomberg investigates Magnus Resch’s controversial book ‘Management of Art Galleries.’ Read it here.
byron
its kinda common sense what they are saying, I found that
galleries do want to keep it in their own circle only to entertain themselves
and their friends. with the infamous way of only getting into the clinical
cubed ‘high end’ spaces via referral or by having immaculate people skills
(whom most artist struggle with) in order to “befriend” ones way into
the space. I even did an experiment and got a shabby looking ‘dude’ to present
work to a place, the result was “yaah it its nice, BUT, is not quite what
we are looking for at the moment.. you see” . After the rejection we
cracket open a beer and laughed because the work that he presented was not his
but work done by Basquiat. A strong point that was brought up was that these “art”
people are too concerned about having and sustaining an image (of themselves)
then getting things on the road and making money and exploring new dimensions.
I found due to all the energy put into to sustaining this elitist’s attitude has
also chased people away from going to galleries or openings. As a result’ people
that want to buy work now days are simply buying directly from the artists
websites or the net and that is due to many reasons but one being that they
“just cant stand” the atmospheres these high end galleries have. I
also found that that atmosphere has made many people who have the pocket to buy
work end up feeling alienated and intimidated from engaging in the work making
them feel that “you I know nothing about art”. As a result of this
social political construct it has made many people (who would/want to buy) feel
intimidated and end up distrusting their own judgement on what they like, which
is merely just an emotional understanding of shape and colour. One can only applicate
art if they have an education and such, so people just end up buying work at Mr
Price home, and as a result Mr Price are laughing off to the bank.
It is merely a social political construct that is becoming
outdated, people don’t have time for ‘bullshit’; as an example “yah I mean come
on what is with the price of this thing, I mean I can paint that shit myself”
then the curator/dealer/assistant/writer/lecture would reply with the intension
of making people connect with the work (with a good use of adjectives, a lot of
jargon, and so on…) Then as a result the buyer feels intimidated and or annoyed
at how their logic is academically incorrect and just end up buying work from
MR Price.
Muyiwa OSIFUYE
I cannot but agree the more with you. After all the late but successful south African artist , Vladimir Tretchikoff did his own thing himself even as his work was regarded as less of an “art”. After many years, his work called kitsch was later grudgingly accepted as norm, with scores lining up at his exhibition space in the US.
Of course he reported with that famous quote, “”I eat critics for breakfast” and he became very rich, keeping to himself…not being represented, I mean.
I think any creative work is spiritual and my position is that nobody, I repeat nobody, should dictate the way I feel in my production and delivery process. Be it a curator, gallery owner or what have you.
It is laughable to note that many curators can’t even draw a straight line but choose to give final judgement on a work that have emanated from the soul of an artist.
The paradigm of “patrons” has changed and living artists had better capitalized on this. They should deal directly with the public, especially those waiting to consume their God given talent.
Lifting a phrase from your write up, the following shaky establishments…the curator/dealer/assistant/writer/lecturer must change to survive.
Artists should have a new mindset of finding out how to get their work directly to prospective collectors. Artist should not be too arrogant when they engage possible collectors.
You simply strike a mutually rewarding deal with the collectors. The brokers going by their different names are dwindling.
An artist can get his own salesmen, on ad hoc basis to sell his works, either through the Internet of personalized website or through brick and mortar.
Artists should imbibe the independent spirit of the courageous Hugh McLeod. He is still alive and he is a modern proof and he is not a pretender.
That’s one of the ways to go in our contemporary times.
