William Rossoto, Artist, Author, Residential Designer, Photgrapher,

Showing posts with label amsterdam whitney gallery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amsterdam whitney gallery. Show all posts

Monday, February 28, 2011

Galleries, Art, & You

I'm writing this post in hope that the many talented artist out there are more informed than than I have been in the past, and if you aren't, maybe this article will be worthy of your consideration.

Most artist produce their work so that others can derive pleasure from it in some form , and possibly be mentally and or spiritually stimulated, challenged about some conventional aspect of society, well...........the list goes on. 

In order for an artist to be seen by an audience requires getting out into the public eye. This is where things get interesting because there are so many ways to gain artistic visibility. The most basic being galleries, our websites, art reps, online galleries, magazines, etc. As you gain web presence you will also gain in the number of unsolicited emails from galleries and art events claiming they want to show your art work, have prize money for the best artist that applies, or claims they have a website that will get your work sold. This might seem like an exciting prospect, but generally they are only looking for ways to make money from unwary artist
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Essentially galleries, online art galleries, and anyone who makes offers of instant artistic success or unrealistic juried prizes is looking for a naive artist that wants so badly to be seen in the public eye that they will pay whatever the asking price is. I have been one of those artist who in my younger days would do anything to be seen and have my ego stroked. no matter the cost.

Recently I received an email from the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in New York asking me if would like to apply to their gallery for an upcoming group show. I looked them up on the net to see if they had any relevance, and it appeared they do actually have a gallery and they also run a few ads on Saatchi. So I proceeded to give them a call and see what they were about. All sounded innocent enough, they wanted to expand their art roster and might be willing to help promote my art work on their website. What was funny about this whole episode with the Whitney Amsterdam Gallery is that I temporarily lost my reasoning power and ability to use my past experiences as a barometer of the sort of actions not to engage in. Please don't make fun of me now. Yes, I did send them my portfolio, bio, and artist statement knowing full well what was probably going to take shape with these gallery folks. Okay, I plead temporary insanity and that is all I'll say about that! You can probably guess what comes next. Within the period of three day they emailed me back and proclaimed to congratulate me on having been accepted by their gallery and how prestigious and momentous this occasion was, and my, I felt so special and elated for just a brief moment before I read the "terms & conditions" portion of their offer.

Already having an intuitive notion as to what I was getting into, but ignoring it in hopes that one of these darling galleries might actually be forthright and honest..................well, that's asking a bit much. Bottom line, they wanted a minimum of $2100.00 to "represent me" and another 40% on top of that for any art work I sold. I just couldn't believe I fell sucker to a scheme I've seen so many times in the past. I promptly replied with a letter to them saying how pleased I was to be accepted by their gallery, and then I dug in deep telling them exactly what I thought of their scheming gallery ways. Yep, I have once again been a sucker. Why can't these galleries just tell you up front if they want your money for displaying work in their galleries instead of going through the elaborate ritual of baiting the sucker artist. I mean, that would be an honest approach and then it would be pretty easy to access what you may or may not want to do.

Perhaps you have encountered a similar event along your path in art and learned from it. Maybe you have paid someone to have your art seen in a gallery. You may even be paying someone online to have your displayed on a website. I'm not making any judgments about whether or not you may want to pay to get visibility, but I do ask you to take a look at as many ways as possible to sell your work without paying to have it done. I have a friend who says, "if you think you need to pay to get your art seen you're going in the dead wrong direction". I have to agree with him because if someone takes a genuine interest in your art, they are going buy it, or sell it for a commission and the terms and conditions will be up front and honest.

If you have an interesting gallery, art, online, selling, or other interesting art experience please feel free to share it with us here on "LIFE AS AN ARTIST".