I was so freaked out by artists that were like, “Ugh, I hate the idea of pricing my work- Whatever you think is good”, and every other manner of “you handle that part”. Yes, as a dealer, I am prepared to handle that part, but don’t you even want to know what’s going on? I mean, it boggles my mind how many artists prefer, PREFER to remain willfully ignorant of the logistics of what’s happening with their own work. If I were an artist dealing with a gallery, I would have some very pointed questions for my dealer.

In response to Kathryn: “I think the gallerist of the future is something of a personal art consultant.”

–I’m reminded of some discussions in the digital music industry, where there is a call for business-people to pay closer attention to consumer demands — and not waste energy on a suicidal defense position against tech changes. As one writer put it (whose name I’ve forgotten), forward-thinking professionals should be viewing music fans as “tribes”. They don’t need professional help with distributing audio recordings anymore, but they do need help connecting with other fans to become music-centered networks, or to discover related musics. Thus, “tribe-building” becomes a lucrative field for the business-minded, and there’s plenty of room for improvement over the algorithm-driven networks in place now. I like applying this analogy to the art market because music is an industry where folks with small incomes can still be viable customers.

I sense that “artist representation” (playing mom) is really what drags gallerists down, and it seems to have resulted in a culture where artists are passive and expect to be cared-for. As an artist, I would like be contacted by numerous people saying something like “hey! I have clients in Texas, Oregon and New Zealand who may be into the type of stuff you’re doing. Let’s keep in touch.” These folks would no longer be investing all their resources in a product-line of a dozen-or-so unpredictable individuals, and can work nimbly. I might be one of 125 artists they are in touch with, and they might switch that 125 out with a different 125 when the time is right. As usual, I will focus on the work and exhibiting publicly, and they can focus on the art of discovering/designing those client/artwork connections, as well as the nature & flavor of the commerce to be pursued — without the burden of the overhead.

Overall, artists can bear the burden of exhibitions (which they’ve proven they are ready and willing to do), and dealers can focus on the joys of business.

What I’ve had my hand in these past five years is dirt. Soil. The Missus and me gave farming a go. Now, before romantic notions set in, ponder this: Think the art world is fickle, try Nature!

I’ve had very little to do with galleries and the like for quite some time. There’s something very dour that persists, no? Oh, I’m still making art, and cultivating idiosyncrasies that this relatively isolated existence affords. Slowly but surely the sour taste of hullabaloo has dissipated.

The prodigal foot dares to test the water once again.

(A rather sizable moth beats against my window to get in.)

No worries. Just go to this website and it will make everything alright (if only for a moment).

http://www.hana-ess.eu.dodea.edu/activities/video/dog_screen_clean.swf

Say hi to Millie for me! I miss you guys.
xoxo
Missy

No worries. Just go to this website and it will make everything alright, if only for a moment. Say hi to Millie for me! I miss you guys.
xoxo
Missy

Lisa–I thought being queer was the price of admission to the art world. You mean there are straight people here? Fuck. Can I still adore Rechy?

And Tony, in no way do I mean to disparage you. Even though we only smiled and nodded to each other when I lived in Chicago (18 years, but yep, beat feet five years ago) I always figured you for a good guy. BTW, we still have our rather massive mailing list, and yes, you are on it.

I am glad that your collecting has the focus it does. There is a lot of young art in your town, and the schools there just keep kicking more of it out. Some good, a lot the product of a pedagogy, and even more because the kid went to school for art for lack of any concrete goals and/or because Daddy is loaded. There are enough of the good ones around, and even more superb artists that have been slogging it out for years, and more still from everywhere else in the world that deserve a venue. I believe this is the clarion call of the bulk of new gallerists. Perhaps, for the new galleries and alternative spaces that don’t go the 501(c)3 route, idealism without a realistic business plan is the most common reason for their hasty demise. It was in our case.

Cheers.

And viewers like me were also grateful for you having great shows, I still have my free mini bible !

on the other hand and going back to the Boyle issue, it seems blogs outside of Chicago are reacting to her letter in a positive way. Which means this thing with galleries closing is a virus everywhere..

Pretty much agree with the first sentence. Yet, with this said, who likes to be told that they’re parochial? It certainly doesn’t get them in the door. It just makes them protest louder that they are indeed not and seek out the comfort of their own.

As for the second, I don’t believe you ever attended a show at bona fide, so I take a little umbrage (just a little umbrage; not enough to get bent). Those who remember the joint might have a slightly different take on what we were trying to do. Maybe not. Who knows? I do know that ours was not the only exhibition space that has tried to shake things up only to go busto.

The passion of a a singular view sometimes can end up just as isolated and isolating as being successful and parochial. Neither typically considers this as a foible.

And so the cycle continues.

>Excuse me?

>This scapegoating of gays for others’ failures has got to end. I’m sorry.

>I hear it more and more, and despite there being plenty of gays in the art world, we are hardly running the place. Gagosian, Zwirner, Boone, Hoffman, etc., etc., etc., you don’t hear them blaming the gays.

I was just kidding. And anyway, I resent the fact that you think we aren’t running the place. I was clearly running the place. And Mary Boone HAS in fact personally blamed me for something. It was the most terrifying week of my life.

Excuse me?

This scapegoating of gays for others’ failures has got to end. I’m sorry.

I hear it more and more, and despite there being plenty of gays in the art world, we are hardly running the place. Gagosian, Zwirner, Boone, Hoffman, etc., etc., etc., you don’t hear them blaming the gays.

“Art is a “desirable industry” and conversely, insurance is an “undesirable industry’. People are not lining up to work in insurance, but Jesus, everyone loves majoring in art. I mean, you can study accounting, or you can think about color, hold your hair in a bun via a paintbrush and meet sexually loose bohemians. Who would choose accounting???”

Four weeks ago, I just took a temp job for an insurance company, in the accounting department. My first experience at 9-5 (gulp). This is after not having a day job for almost a year, while still keeping a part-time night job. During the day, before my experiment with the office world, I assumed ART to be my job. I woke up, took a coffee to my studio, and got at it for hours. I am mainly a conceptual artist, so I mostly just sat there thinking (haha). No really.

Anyways, this time led me to think about being more accessible in my artmaking. And networking. And attaining some professional artist development. And what I got was my first rejection letters. After three years of showing art in Chicago: no to the biennial, no to the art residencies, no to the gallery jobs, and no, to the internships. But I’m still plugging along. As an artist. After sucking it up and taking a stupid job so I can try to pay back my student loans for going to art school. I am still an artist.

Lisa, Please, just take a break. Take a miserable 9-5, save a few bucks, and come back strong, with a plan. And have fun. Everyone forgets to have fun, because art is a business, right? Wrong. (well…..) Just take a note at which galleries YOU think are successful, and don’t put an emphasis on the money part. The money will come………won’t it?

But other times, I think of all the small projects in the art world, (small in terms of capitalization, but huge in terms of ambition and commitment) projects like ours and several others locally (you named four) and I think, “Can all these people be wrong? Is the deck so stacked against us that it would cripple those without our magic ‘rose colored’ glasses?” I think the answer is obvious. It should cripple us, but we try anyway. Every time I get really down I see those others who struggle to support projects they believe in; fledgling galleries, upstart residencies, print collectives, magazines, podcast, fellow artist and it pushes out the loneliness and fear. There must be a way to make it work. It is our fucking art world and we have to make it into the thing we want it to be. It is up to us to support the things we believe in. And it may be to us to find ways to make local collectors care about the culture here, but should we not first make it a culture we care about?

I will miss your gallery but, I’m frankly, overjoyed to welcome you as a voice to/in Bad at Sports. It is nowhere near as glamorous as the gallery but… well, at least it’s something.

>Negatively: As seen at most art fairs,
probably super-funded gallery-hobbiests who need no money, and seek more power in this tiny artworld than money anyway; ones who build vast Media Mart-like arenas called galleries, hiring PhD art historian wannbe curators as fancy secretaries. Positive model? I have no idea.

Mark, thanks for your comment. I suppose part of my writing notes that while there ARE a good number of dealers like this, people who are afloat by family money for example, there are also a few that started out like I did, without external financial support. I am impressed by people who can make a go of this starting at a sum of zero.

So like I said, I occasionally indulge in some bellyaching about competing with such a type, but don’t actual begrudge them. I know a lot of dealers who made money elsewhere in a more lucrativet business career and are using the income from that to run the gallery. I think this too is admirable. Just because someone came into the game flush with money from being an investor before, doesn’t mean they can’t make a good art dealer. The worked hard to make the money and they work hard to keep it, since it’s so difficult to do so in the contemporary market.

I do think the art fair deluge is a bad thing though. And people with lots of financial support have a very strong advantage in this game. And it matters. I think has done very little good for a vast majority of artists and dealers. Very little. I have to admit, I hope to see it collapse on itself in some way and regenerate a more interesting model.

my sympathy to chicago for the loss. my congrats to lisa for the experience.

Lisa

You, your space, and your program are/were fantastic. Best of luck in what comes next, if anyone in the BAS family can help let us know. You have my e-mail, just ask.

R

What’s the new model?

Negatively: As seen at most art fairs,
probably super-funded gallery-hobbiests who need no money, and seek more power in this tiny artworld than money anyway; ones who build vast Media Mart-like arenas called galleries, hiring PhD art historian wannbe curators as fancy secretaries. Positive model? I have no idea.

Thanks for the post. Good luck with everything in the future.

That was one of the most candid pieces of writing I’ve ever seen on the subject, and I hope 1000 comments follow, because if we can figure out this issue, world peace is not far behind.

Did you immediately hit every patron with the bird horse muffin game? http://badatsports.com/2006/episode-59-lisa-boyle-reviews/. If you could have branded your entire gallery around that theme, you would still be in business. I was haunted by that goddamn thing for weeks.

Jokes aside, I will say, though, that you’re being too hard on yourself. My husband tried to be a screenwriter in L.A. for 9 years. Someone commented, “you really have to network to make it.” and he said “Bullshit. I knew tons of people who networked and they didn’t make it either.”

Art is a “desirable industry” and conversely, insurance is an “undesirable industry’. People are not lining up to work in insurance, but Jesus, everyone loves majoring in art. I mean, you can study accounting, or you can think about color, hold your hair in a bun via a paintbrush and meet sexually loose bohemians. Who would choose accounting???

There are just too many English majors (my major), art majors, liberal arts majors in relationship to the available jobs. So to dismiss how simply damn hard the market is I think is the 800 pound gorilla.

Say you wanted to make 40,000 a year. The salary of someone 3 years in corporate culture. My math, assuming your rent is 1K a month, and you split the sales with the artist, is that you’ve got to sell almost 2K in art every single weekend.

What are the chances? What if you had a family and that income needed to be 80K? 4K in art sales in a weekend??? What if you like experimental stuff that NO ONE would want on their wall. Do you have an eye for good art, or an eye for art that will sell? Isn’t there a difference?

Oh, wait, and the social code says you have to pay for everyone’s booze. WHY???

My dad was a film producer and when I wanted to be an actress, he read me the riot act about how bad it is for actors. One tenth of ONE percent of people in the actors union (and you have to have had a lot of paid gigs to even get into the union) make a living by acting.

This is the arts. And if the stats for gallerists are bad, it’s worse for artists. How many MFAs graduate every year? How many artists are making a living? That’s going to make one tenth of one percent sound bountiful.

I am sorry for the loss of your gallery, but I’ll stick with the it’s-a-tough-racket argument.

Remember what the yogis say. If you eat too much salt, you will die. If you don’t eat enough salt, you will die. If you eat just the right amount of salt, you will die.

I’m not saying you didn’t make mistakes. I have no idea. But it does seem like doing everything right is no guarantee either.

I feel for you. I curated a show when I was a single mom. I put every last dime and every last ounce of energy I had into it. Nobody came. Any promised press mentions fell through. So I swore I wouldn’t curate another show until I had some real connections in the press. Now I know that even that’s not enough. I think a ton about marketability, branding, how to differentiate, the type of PR hook it will have. The project I’m working on now I’m doing because I’m convinced it will have enough of a hook to get press. And people here and “other groups” have hassled me for being too money oriented. But you’re a case in point. It sucks to fail. It sucks to fold. It’s demoralizing. And it’s refreshing to see someone being honest about it.

Love,
Kathryn