A Not-Entirely-Selfless Proposal
There's no doubt that most galleries will have more than enough to do in Miami this year (the openings, meetings, and party schedules remain as frantic as ever), but inspired by the G20 meeting in Washington last weekend, in which the leaders of the world's top 20 industrial countries gathered to pool their best ideas for reviving the global economy, I would like to propose that the international leaders of the art gallery world host a summit of sorts at which experienced dealers share their insights on the best ways for dealing with a global downturn in the art market. Exactly who those "leaders" are might be debatable as such, but it should be straightforward enough for the Presidents of the various art dealers associations (e.g., ADAA, AIPAD, IFPDA, NADA, etc.) to use their representational positions to serve as executive hosts and recommend dealers well suited to share on the subject.
What I personally feel might be extremely appreciated by younger dealers (in particular), who have never experienced a significant global downturn like this one, is an opportunity to listen to a panel of dealers who have been through one discuss what measures they had taken in terms of cutting costs and other survival tips. Then a Q&A session in which audience members could ask them questions.
Obviously, not every established gallery would be all that sorry to see a few of the younger dealers close up shop, should it come to that, but I suspect even the most competitive among us can see, perception playing such a significant role in consumer confidence, that a perceived collapse of the market is not in the industry's interest.
My guess is that Friday morning (December 5) might be a good time to schedule such a summit. By then, many of the biggest collectors will have made most of their big decisions, and interest in a meeting like this will be pretty clear to most. Even if the meeting ends up being simply celebratory (fingers crossed), the opportunity to learn a few tips would probably still attract a lot of interest.
I know it's easy for me to suggest other people scramble to organize something when they already have plenty to do, but if 20 of the world's most powerful political leaders can manage to find the time to meet, surely this is feasible. I'll volunteer to serve coffee.
What I personally feel might be extremely appreciated by younger dealers (in particular), who have never experienced a significant global downturn like this one, is an opportunity to listen to a panel of dealers who have been through one discuss what measures they had taken in terms of cutting costs and other survival tips. Then a Q&A session in which audience members could ask them questions.
Obviously, not every established gallery would be all that sorry to see a few of the younger dealers close up shop, should it come to that, but I suspect even the most competitive among us can see, perception playing such a significant role in consumer confidence, that a perceived collapse of the market is not in the industry's interest.
My guess is that Friday morning (December 5) might be a good time to schedule such a summit. By then, many of the biggest collectors will have made most of their big decisions, and interest in a meeting like this will be pretty clear to most. Even if the meeting ends up being simply celebratory (fingers crossed), the opportunity to learn a few tips would probably still attract a lot of interest.
I know it's easy for me to suggest other people scramble to organize something when they already have plenty to do, but if 20 of the world's most powerful political leaders can manage to find the time to meet, surely this is feasible. I'll volunteer to serve coffee.
Labels: art market
posted by Edward_ at
7:33 AM
60 Comments:
Ed,
It's a great idea. The emerging galleries provide a valuable service by acting as an incubator for artists which years later may become culturally prominent.
Fantastic idea.
just focus and investigate oustide the big art scenes... the artworld needs to have balls and stop being so artsy elitist.
Pedrovel
You wouldn't happen to work outside the big art scenes, would you Pedrovel?
jaja, I work both sides and it feels great!
Visit Puerto Rico, without being edited, do it before I leave to Chi...I fully recommend it.
Pedrovel
If you think the few big art markets are doing bad, just think of the rest of the artist working outside those markets...they are eating Spam everyday...there should be space for everybody.
Pedrovel
goes like this:
First PowerPoint slide;
Guard your insider information like never before.
Second PowerPoint slide;
(there is no second slide.)
I tend to disagree Tim. There really isn't what people think of as insider information in the art market...there are relationships, pure and simple.
I think good dealers will learn what they want to learn and the only thing another dealer accomplishes by hoarding information if they ask for it is to ensure they'll return the favor some day.
Tim, you know that I hold you in very high esteem, but I think Edward is probably right on this one.
Well, not to adapt my argument to match your very astute response, Ed, but I think relationships are information. Introductions are held very dear in the art world, no? Far better than a cold call to the same person.
Thanks for the props, Deb, but I understand my value, such as it is, as one of a very enthusiastic and naive beginner. Certainly not even in the same universe as Ed, or on the opposite coast of the same universe, anyway.
Like the car industry, the art market needs to go Chapter 11 and start from scratch. It thinks it knows what people want, but really just peddles to vanity and excess, like some other field. Oh yes, the SUV and Mercedes buying auto industry, the same folks who buy self indulgent art nonsense.
Pedrovel is correct. 99.9% of the world laughs at the art world, but would love to buy relevant art. Dose that exist anymore? Perhaps, but not through the established system of Fine Art dealers for the elitist core, who brought us this Depression.
Find real art, that of humanities needs and goals, and you will start a foundation to build on when this eventualy ends. Which it will, but far from over. Most will go under quickly. They have no better product than Chrysler, how could it survive a dose of reality?
I think Tim is wrong when he suggests relationships are information. Relationships are bonds of trust built between two parties over time. It is not just who you know, but how well you know them. Regardless, it isn't really a matter which is at the core of the business problems during an economic downturn.
Anon's reference to the car industry is ill-informed and applying it towards the art world sounds like sour grapes.
How so? And I saw what has just started to happen years ago, the numbers just did not work. Self delusion has been at work in much of America for decades, the art world just reflects this, though mostly of those who caused it. Those are the customers of the present art world.
And they are intrinsically intertwined, the new market for relevant art is out there, among those who will be creating from this mess. Not those who are in the massivley speculative art market, which became a fantasy commodity decades ago, for those who burnt the candle at both ends, so there is nothing left to use. It must be rebuilt, and no light, until the time it is able to sustain itself.
The current art market is unable to do this, their values skewed, their product hollow. Times are changing fundamentally, you cannot just retool what doesnt work, as the Auto industry wants to do. Chapter 11 is in order. For the frivilous art centers of the world also.
I looks like you'll need decent accountants to give you advice. Basically, how low is too low before bankrupcy?
It's an illusion that big galleries are so perfectly prepared, when there's insane overhead and artists with huge production costs. They just have access to the more stable, steadier collectors with deep pockets and longer attention spans. The solution is for the smaller galleries to gain access to the upper echelon of collectors - the few who are in big museum boards and have enough to stay through the hard times.
The reality is that most smaller galleries will not survive - that's basic math. It's funny that most of the people who make pronoucements that only so very few artists' markets will "survive" forget that galleries work in parallel terms to that.
Dealers will NOT take time off the selling floor to "discuss" the market - not during MBasel. Hello?Zwirner and others have already spoken before the bubble burst and most of the galleries that are huge today were started in the early 90's, during the bad days, like DZ and lots of others.
It seems like moments of crisis always brings out the ideologues who want to tell us how the situation should be handled. Unfortunately many of these intellectual fantasies are based upon mistaken assumptions from a history whose time has passed.
Moreover, we have been "led" by a government infested with ideologues who were so sure they were "right" they drove the car right off the cliff.
Now the ideologues will tell you, "let GM fail" the markets and the bankruptcy courts will sort it all out. And, in a kinder gentler time this approach might work. But, the major difference between a pre-programmed bankruptcy and a government loan is in how the creditors of GM would be paid off. Neither solution has any affect on how GM develops its product mix.
Ah, the creditors all the suppliers and car dealers who would feel the negative effects of a bankruptcy. But, so what? Ok, how about the employees, of GM, the suppliers and the rest of the industries which are directly connected to GM?
That's roughly three million members of the labor force.
The world economies are very intertwined, a seemingly innocuous decision made in NYC, or London, has brought Iceland to its knees.
We are at a tipping point in this nations history and for the moment no one is at the helm of the ship of state. The ideologues have failed in the most spectacular way imaginable and the ship is in danger of sinking.
So where we are right now is drifting at sea waiting for the new president to take over. Keep your fingers crossed.
Now, anonymous suggests "the new market for relevant art is out there, among those who will be creating from this mess." and I would agree.
But, that's as far as it goes since I'm given no hint of what "relevant art" might be. Further, from the tone of anonymous' comment, I get the feeling there is a basic lack of understanding about both history and human nature at work here. Other than the anger from rejection, I can see no need to tear things down just to satisfy an egotistic impulse. What about all the other workers?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Oh no, it's another attack of the art collegia guy. Unfortunately we do know the Drill. Wasn't he asked to leave?
prizesse
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
I sell my work to the middle class and I do it by giving my patrons the kind of value that much of the art scene today refuses to see as valuable.
To sell to this demographic, I do commission work. These days, there's a stigma attached to this kind of work--it's as if a piece must be "commercial" if an artist makes it with a specific patron in mind--but making work with a clear idea of its audience is as relevant and vital as art can get. And, what's more, this kind of work has value that even the frugal-when-it-comes-to-art-buying middle class is willing to pay for.
I happen to be making portraits on commission, but I'm convinced that this approach could work for any kind of art-making. The middle class desperately wants artists to give them value and to make art that's meaningful to them.
I'm not convinced that gallery owners have a real place in this new (art) world order. The middle men are going to have to work hard to be a part of this exchange, since, by definition, this kind of art is all about direct communication between artist and patron. Maybe art dealers will have to become something more like artist dealers.
It's just a recession, it's not the end of the world.
There have been several recessions in the past and the art world survived all of them. It's true some galleries closed and some artists decided to take up other professions. But, other artists kept making art, the artworks were exhibited and sold just like in the good times. Almost by definition, sales contract in a recession, for all businesses.
While I believe that exploring ideas for alternative approaches to exhibiting, pretending that the gallery system is going to disappear is silly. It's a business.
Oh no, it's another attack of the art collegia guy. Unfortunately we do know the Drill. Wasn't he asked to leave?
In crystal clear terms.
Comment moderation has been turned back on again. I'll do what I can to keep the turn around quick.
I know that among artist friends who do some freelance work, we're already doing a version of this. During the 2001(ish) recession there were about 18 of us working in the visual department at Bergdorf Goodman.
I think a summit among a crosssection of galleries is a very good-natured idea by Ed. However, I don't think it makes sense if you compare it to something even similar to the G20. The art market (world) has no government. There are no economic rules and regulations. It's a business of private sector and entrepreneurship. The only uniting, or leveling bond is that they all pay taxes.
That isn't to say that galleries don't help each other out. They do. But I don't think one gallery is going to pull another gallery's weight. And as much as I like the idea that artists are like athletes, I would hate to see galleries trading (things or people) like their teams in the same league like the NBA or MLB.
The way it wouldn't work reminds me of the 5th season of the Wire. The "co-op" situation.
First off we love "Wire" It's addictive just like art.
Second of all Aaron Wexler sez: I think a summit among a crosssection of galleries is a very good-natured idea by Ed. However, I don't think it makes sense if you compare it to something even similar to the G20. The art market (world) has no government. There are no economic rules and regulations.
Of course you cant compare to G20. But personally I think even if there is no rules, laws, no goverment, regulations - there are people who make living from it, artists, their families, dealers, their familie, shippers, art handlers, office stuff etc, list can go on and on.
So I think it is a great idea, to exchange experiences, thougths, ideads in order to keep doing what you love and support others.
On the other note galleries do not trade artists. Artists do trade galleries, in order to pursuit their career, dont mind to leave the gallery for bigger gallery. At least thats what I know and heard so far. Correct me or share if you have heard the opposite.
I don't really see what can be done about it. Very few galleries have the means to ride out a serious slowdown and as such many will go under.
whe I moved to NY in the early 90's the art world was poor but pretty lively...you had Kenny Schachter's roving shows (Ed did this too if i remember correctly) and "spaces" in people's homes.
It will go back to this.
Ed did this too if i remember correctly
Yes, and while I loved it initially, I'm not anxious to repeat it...too much effort for such a short pay off..getting too old..that's a young man's game
I want to add to your proposal:
1)Closing some art schools.
If we are going to discuss the business side of art we must include the "supply" side of art as well.
Art DEALERS, not this absurd name gallerist, used to share artists. They would create networks in other cities with allied dealers, and so both enhance the artists position and art, and be able for him to make a living. Things were not crazy as now. This can still be done, but dealers need to be decent businessmen, not hucksters in a circus.
Art DEALERS, not this absurd name gallerist, used to share artists.
What is this referring to? Who is "this absurd name gallerist"? Is that supposed to be Ed? How rude!
just listening in.
Art DEALERS, not this absurd name gallerist
Now, now grandpa...I know it still bugs you that they're called "movies" and not "talkies" anymore, but ...
I think "gallerist" makes sense in certain contexts, but "art dealer" should be the overall term used to discuss the profession. When I use "gallerist" I'm specifically referring to a primary-market dealer with a program that reflects their personal interests (outside making money, that is).
They would create networks in other cities with allied dealers, and so both enhance the artists position and art, and be able for him to make a living. Things were not crazy as now. This can still be done, but dealers need to be decent businessmen, not hucksters in a circus.
Many dealers still do this (some of them decent business people and some of them what you're terming 'hucksters' [or underhanded business people]). The two issues are not related.
What I believe Bambino means to suggest is that gallerists (again, as opposed to dealers) don't target certain artists to advance their standing/careers/profits at the sacrifice of their visions. I think it gets a bit complex at this point, but I understand what he means.
Gallerist is a contemporary term where a few think THEY are the artists, that arrainging postage stamp sized work, or one giant assemblage or "installagtion" makes them the creative force at work. Considering the overwhelming acreage of wallspace wasted on bad art, they think they can create the sale themselves by HOW it is presented. Art always stands on its own, or isnt art. It may be commissioned for a certain space, to decorate, and enrich it, but still will be art in a book, or taken to another location.
Gallerists are done, art dealers who REPRESENT their stable of artists need to come back in vogue. Businessmen first, that is a dealers job, NOT being an artist. Find artists you beleive in, and stick with them,including getting them shown in other cities, one cannot make a living through one gallery. If the original dealer does this, he wil make more in the long run.
Setting up a show is easy, a couple nails and frames and you're done, if you waste more time than that you are being foolish. Presentation may make a 5% impact on good art, 100% on bad art as presentation has the same effect, just bad art has no resonance anyway, so you gotta put a bow on it to pretty it up. Still doesnt work no that reality is setting back into the art world.
I admit it - I've always hated "gallerist" too. It didn't help that I first saw the term used in Flash Art during the Nineties. I remember thinking at the time that dealers were trying to elevate themselves to the level of artists by appropriating their suffix. It turns out to be a fairly handy coinage and some of the pretension has worn off over time, but only when used interchangably with "art dealer."
Pace George, the ideologues didn't drive the metaphorical car off the cliff, the partisans did, and the outgoing administration was marked not so much by ideologues as hyperpartisans. Ideologues at least have an ideology. Partisans cling to identity. This administration has mouthed free-market talking points while expanding the legal and financial scope of government to unprecedented reaches, because in this way it courts the loyalty of partisans. This administration has generally disappointed anyone with an identifiable ethos, including Christian conservatives too numerous to name and intellectual conservatives like George Will. It takes a partisan like Sarah Palin to smear Obama as a socialist while redistributing state wealth from oil revenues.
That said, the car companies need to die, if that's what the market would have them do, and it's not at all clear that that is the case. I have become convinced from studying the recent bank failures that you can regulate and legislate and bail out all you like, but nothing will ensure moderate behavior in business except the fear of total ruin.
What this has to do with the art market or Ed's proposal, I have no idea.
There are so many problems with that last comment, it's hard to know where to start correcting them. In fact, there are so many problems with that comments I'm tempted to simply dismiss it as the ravings of a staggeringly uninformed (not to mention historically arrogant) person, but in the interest of dispelling a few of the myths and wrong perceptions offered therein, I'll do what I can to untangle that mess and offer clarity.
arrainging postage stamp sized work, or one giant assemblage or "installagtion" makes them the creative force at work
Installation-based work is arranged by the artist, not the dealer or gallerist.
Attempts to contextualize work by various artists or even one artist by someone other than the artist(s) via composition or juxtaposition or installation is part of "curating" and is as valid a practice in a commercial gallery as it is a museum (questions of quality of the curating aside).
How large or small a work is seems wholly irrelevant, even in the context of your proscribed ideal of the simple show ("a couple nails and frames and you're done").
Gallerists are done, art dealers who REPRESENT their stable of artists need to come back in vogue. Businessmen first, that is a dealers job, NOT being an artist.
Pushing aside the strawman in your argument (i.e., that "gallerist" confuse themselves with "artists" and don't see themselves first as businessmen), I'm happy you've sorted out for your dealers what their proper place in all this is. They're very lucky businesspeople.
What you're leaving out of your assessment here, though, is any indication that you understand that in dictating the role of all dealers you are also arrogantly, inadvertently dictating the role of all collectors. There exists a broad spectrum of collectors (just as there do artist practices), and there are a class of collectors who seek out and enjoy working with dealers who operate as "gallerists." I know, because I work with many of them, and they express quite clearly that the dialog with the gallerist they buy from is an important part of collecting for them.
But you seem quite confident in dictating how your dealers and collectors should approach buying and selling your art, so I assume that's going well for you. Carry on...
oops... comments overlapped...by "last comment" I meant anon at 12:46:00 PM, not Franklin
I'm guessing that anon 12:46 doesn't have (m)any dealers or collectors. S/he sounds too bitter, angry and judgmental to be a working participant in the business s/he so arrogantly derides.
just listening in.
There are indeed problems with the artist-gallery system/relationship...but the big problem now is that the economy sucks and no one is buying art. It's that simple.
Nah, I do, two here in LA, just not the idiots at Bergamot and such. Old school galleries with older "gallerists", who do as I have stated, as thats what all art dealers used to do, now just a bunch of kids trying to be hip on daddies dime. Very irritating, and wouldnt know art if it hit them in their heads. Though they dont do enough work to actually be hit by anything, too busy hand wringing and whining. About "concepts' and hanging a show. Old school art dealers do not have "curators", they do it themselves, supervising a hired hand to hang or bring in a sculpture.
Too many people doing one persons job, really bsurd, and why so many useless appendages are being laid off. Thre was never any need, just looks hip to have some girl staring blankly into a giant Mac screen all day long, while the "gallerist" plays at nothing in his office. Absurd. Just getting back to reality is all. Cutting the fat.
anon @ 03:36:00 PM,
Your descriptions of extra people who stare blankly all day or dealers who opened galleries on their parents' money doesn't ring true for any of the galleries I'm friends with or whom I know the downturn is impacting. Most come from working class backgrounds, scraped together their galleries out of sweat and smarts, and did so out of a passion for the art they saw being made around them...not to act hip or pretend they're artists or any of the rationales you're offering.
Personally, I'm a bit exhausted today, it's been a very busy week (thank God) and we're shipping out our work to Miami tomorrow, which means I've been lifting, packaging, painting, wrapping, organizing, labeling, collecting, and waking up in a panic at 4:00 am every morning remembering yet another important thing I have yet to do.
Like I said, I'm exhausted...so perhaps I'm taking this all a bit too seriously, but I think it's good you don't have the kind of dealer I'm talking about being impacted by all this, because quite frankly you don't sound to me like you deserve one.
What those of us with real jobs and contribute to the economy, and do art because we love it. And those carreerists in the "industry" of gallery art consider Work are two completely different things. There is no softer "work" than the art world. I make enough money to keep at it, and grow as an artist. I dont have a single style that is "marketable", which is how I like it, and most artists of the past, Picasso, Klee, Braque, etc. WE are exploreers, and that takes a life outside of the art world. Connected to the earth, and people in all works of life. And dont go and tell me Chelsea is that, no more than WeHo or Miami. PULEEEASE!
Your PARENTS may have worked hard, but have never met an art world type who actually had enough work to fill up a 40 hour week, let alone a 60 hour as most of us have, plus kids and other obligations. You include parties, note writing, this place, and travesl that are really vacations, little work involved. Handwringing yeah, but not work. Which is why the field is so attractive to kids with no clue about waht to do in life. Parties, which is all sweet Paddy does over at ArtFag, but she is a sweet girl, so forgivable. And lacks the attitude most have. She is getting an education in life as the rest of art world types are just beginning to learn, its gonna be a long one.
Artists have been soft, time for them to own up to the world, learn it, and understand they have a role to play, not greater, or lesser, than any other form of endeavor. No artistes in the Obama administration, which thank god is decidedly centrist. Liberals are a crown of thorns, to be put aside as quickly and quietly as possible, and deal with the cross that is born by the real world.
What an totally self-centered kook you are, anon 4:52:00 PM. You know absolutely nothing about me or the work I've had to do to get to this place (bricklaying, dish washing, waiting tables, painting houses, teaching English, copyediting medical journals, cleaning meat lockers, etc. etc.) just to put myself through college and save enough to open my space, and yet you have the ignorant gall to suggest somehow you know work and I don't. Based on some predetermined, wholly unfounded bias you have about people who open galleries. You're the quintessential clueless ass.
Big deal, we all work, but only artistes have ennui. You just got back from vacation,and awaken at 4 in the morning. Case closed.
you're beginning to sound a bit familiar anonymous...why don't you take a vacation...seriously, dude, you're pure bile.
Anon 5:51 et al: The clue phone rang. It's for you!
deserves deletion
kiestor
Is anyone else here paying any attention to how intense a moment in history we are living through?
mimyfoo
Force the anonymous a-holes to provide a name.
Eric Gelber
Anon 5:51
I too am a gallerist from a working class midwestern family who is proud of my roots and work ethic. It is a different world now and your outdated notion of "the art world" has changed significantly. I love art and artists. The ones I work with are amazing and we have a very important dialogue. How sad for you that you do not have the same. Some businessman schlepping your wares at some unimportant gallery. I can now understand why you are so bitter and ill informed. If you really knew Mr. Winkleman (or Paddy Johnson for that matter) you would never utter such immature nonsense.
Actually I think it's too bad Anon is sounding so much like a crabby old man getting Art Kids off his damn lawn, because buried deep in his rants is a potentially interesting call to privilege the more mundane, bootstrappy, ego-scrubbing hard work of an art "career."
If Anon was succeeding at that, he would listen attentively to Edward's endless list of mundane tasks and maybe wonder aloud if the people who are going to flourish in this downturn are the ones who can pack their own damn crates.
Any artist or dealer that actually has skin and muscle in the game is going to spend less and be able to go further into the recession with their available resources. And anyone who's physically committed is going to make really different choices than the pointy-shoe crowd who's perhaps more reliant on fabricators, art handlers a whole Versaille of other opportunities to outsource.
But that's not an idea to spew bile about or get all hateful over. It's more like an interesting set of questions about what's going to happen and who's going to thrive over the next few years, and what the art world is going to look like after it contracts, and what kind of art will get made.
People who have an idea that they are worth of life if they work really hard are probably not experiencing life very well.
I understand the necessity of hard work, but not the value of it. If you work too hard it should mean that you haven't found the way yet to work less in achieving the same tasks. Let's reward initiatives, not hard work. Hard work is the failure of a system.
Cedric Casp
Labor creates all wealth, Cedric!
Ideas in and of themselves are meaningless, just games and amusements. Ideas must be tested, carried out, worked at, and then in contact with the real world, adapted and evolved. This takes work, openness, true intelligence to see what is working and how to take it into new directions, Ideas are sterile, and do not lead to any new ideas. Dead things. Made by man for man, not to live and thrive in nature. The real world.
I don't agree, Deborah. You can spend each days going at sea trying to catch fishes. Or you can design some sort of small lagoon where fishes get caught there each day, and you find hundreds when you arrive on spot each morning.
One method is pure labor, the other involves initiative.
Cheers,
Cedric C
The pond still takes labor to build, the idea would be the architect, but need a contrator to do it. And sometimes things change while doing. Plus, wild salmon tastes ten times better, and healthier.
Human ideas always shallow compared to the real thing, and always derivative, not creative. Still just making what already exists in nature, but not as well.
Yes, 3 weeks of labor compared to 11 years of harsh hell.
I wasn't thinking salmon, but you're right. In some places salmons trap themselves much more easily than through whatever means humans could conceive. These natural traps can help humans design other very effective traps to catch salmons right in the wild.
Do listen to nature. It's hinting at you all the time.
See this monkey? You can call it Cedric.
Cedric C
Seems more like a puppet. Nature is always our guide, and adapts even more readily than we do. The earth will be here after us, as before. It may not be a nice sweet safe place taht WE desire, but Nature doesnt care. It lives, creates, adapts, is. We think we are, and therefore foolish. We are but part of nature, not more, or separate.
Yet we have this need to excel, create, become more. This we can do, but by exploring our world, one we are part of, and cannot separate from. There will always be more than we can understand, we are but foolish monkeys. And need to act accordingly, for our troop, in our forest. To evolve, and leave to our baby monkeys something better. Not more stuff, thats just more garbage to be dealt with, but more inner peace, adapted to the real world we are a part of. Less is more, but natural rules.
+++We are but part of nature, not +++more, or separate.
That was my point. If you take a hint from me, it's from nature.
Cedric
anon "there is no softer 'work' than the artworld"
that sums you up perfectly. an uninformed, bitter, narrow and provincial point of view. you will be ignored always as you are now.
Concerning the "gallerist" term, I like it as it parallels "artist." In Europe we HAVE to use it because the word "dealer" has entered most of our languages directly as "drug pusher," so it is absolutely impossible to use the term, it confuses the hell out of everybody.
The "roving" show idea was done admirably by my then-gallerist Lauren Martin, calling herself TransientNYC, after she left working at Jeffrey Deitch. She got tons of press, hords of viewers, sold okay, and worked herself to the bone, to the point that she has taken a several year break (well, due to kids too, etc., but the work aspect was really overwhelming. It is like a permanent string of art fairs and art fairs alone.)
"In Europe we HAVE to use it because the word "dealer" has entered most of our languages directly as "drug pusher," so it is absolutely impossible to use the term, it confuses the hell out of everybody."
There went my coffee. :)
By "roving", you mean a gallery that shifts from place to place at each exhibit? Wow, that's exactly what I'm looking for! Where!? Where!?
Cedric Caspesyan
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