Quote:
Greentea wrote:
Can galleries send your work to their distributors abroad?
Does it mostly happen that the gallerist pushes you to produce more, or on the contrary, that the artist pushes the gallerist to sell more of their works?
Can an exclusive contract with a gallery that devotes itself to promoting mainly [b]your work be a beneficial thing?[/b]
Do you sometimes need to visit the gallerists as PR for you so they don't "forget" about you?
Galleries cannot really send your work anywhere without your permission. they may have affiliate galleries overseas and they may help you to organise shows overseas or tee you up with a gallery in anothr country. OR they may put your work in a visual arts international festival (BIennales etc.) I don't mix in those circles however. And that starts getting into the level of art scene hob-nobbing and pure wankery - excuse language but it was the only word that was specific enough - which i have little to do with. That side of the art scene is really of no interest to me. THat is the establishment career stuff. I have Asperger's. I operate on my own. I do not run in contrived or socially constructed packs.
Yes, the gallery can push you to produce more of the kind of work they want. This is the age old conflict between gallerist and artist. The commercial versus the creative. I always leave galleries when they do this with me. I produce what i want and not what the market wants. My works shifts because i seem to have several brains. I pursue my own logic. The galleries rarely understand. Occasionally you get great gallerists who do.
THe artist rarely pushes the gallery to sell more work. The artist is in fact the least powerful aspect of the artist-gallery-client triad, because usually - they have the least money! Critical success in the art scene is mostly illusion and smoke and mirrors. It is glorified advertising with a little "dash of odious panache" - and the art scene will have the majority of people believing its hype. THere are many, many incredible practitioners and artists out there who never make it, who do not have "the right connections" or "the right ingredients" to qualify for what is perceived as art scene "success." It is really all BS.
The only thing that actually matters is someone working hard and really enjoying their process and their experience of creativity.
I cannot say it enough. the art scene is in fact a glorified advertising scene for one off objects and artifacts. That is all. IT is the realm of PLANET EGO.
I actually had an hour long call with my gallery in sydney yesterday - where i just had a solo show ans sold nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was sick all afternoon after the call and the interaction - because these things take so much out of me. Anyway, I queried why they had not sold anything, discussed a number of fairly serious issues I have with them and got nothing but fluff talk in return. For every artist who is represented in a gallery, there are hundreds who have no gallery to represent them. Galleries know this. One must tread carefully - unless of course you have some kind of autism like me, and set about telling them their business model and their approach is both puerile and facile, which are two adjectives i specifically used yesterday. I also told them they had scant understanding of the artist and I was horrified by the air head girls they now have working for them and who i had to communicate with via phone when my exhibition was on. THE gallery manager is ok and somewhat insightful, but he still does ot quite understand my bluntness and my directness. Still, he knows i have integrity and am honest. I don't compromise on that stuff. I cannot. I do not have an "edit" button when I need to speak my truth. A change is brewing. I do not like change. BUt there is no alternative if my values are being compromised by w*kers.
Visiting the gallerists and galleries as a PR exercise is supposedly very important. I am lousy at it. I do most contact via email and also phone. Most artists in "the scene" spend the large bulk of their time going to openings and being seen and making connections and networking. They then spend some of their time painting or working!! Some real artists spend most of their time working and rarely get involved in that side of things or if they do, are very selective about the dangers of the scene, and its pitfalls and its illusory nature. IT is a good idea to get to your galleries and say hi and speak to them. I went up to an opening with my new qld gallery last month - I spent the next day in bed with migraine and sick. That is autism and sensory overload for me. And i burst into tears that day because I am so different to all these artists who breeze through the social side of it and get out there and network and do all that yucky stuff. I can do a bit, but i find it exhausting and it requires a part of my brain to activate that does not seem to work in the way their brains work. When I was on too high a dose of anti-depressants I would indiscriminately monologue and spout opinions in true blint AS manner.
I would get a lot further in my career if i did that kind of thing. But it is a foreign world to me. I can say the niceties and then I do not know how to keep things going in a chit-chatty light manner. the smooth breeze of light conversation makes no sense to me. I really do want to live a life that is about living in accordance with my values, being decent and productive, selling a bit here and there. the star path is crazy. It is all illusion. It means absolutely nothing. I know artists who live that life. They are hollow in my view...there is a kind of moneyed shabbiness about it all...it is so far away from what I am on about as a human being. IT really depends on your perception of "success." What is success? for me, it is living truthfully and adhering to honesty and integrity with care of self an others as much as possible. It's an old fashioned way to be. But it makes sense to me and to a lot of other ASD people as well, i suspect.
the world is mad.
I just draw and paint all the time instead. I am poor at present. and as happy as I am going to be. I have my son, a roof over my head, my ex who is my friend, animals and my work. I have enough to live. I live in accordance with who i am as an autistic woman and artist. that is all there is. That is my success. i want peace. I am tired of anything else in life. It is hard for us. We need to find the peace and jewels where we can.
23 Jun 2009, 2:26 pm
