Taking AIM!: The Business of Being an Artist Today

Gallerists and the Marketplace

Gallerists and the Marketplace carla stellweg The Bronx Museum of the Arts’ invitation to contribute to the anniversary publication of its Artist in the Marketplace program recalls my experiences of the 1980s when the program was initiated and I took part in it as a guest speaker. My gallery began in 1988 and was shaped by a vision to create a hybrid space that could provide the New York art world with exposure to the international Latin American and Latino artists and art market. Secondary market revenues enabled me to jumpstart the careers of those artists I had worked with previously, as an editor, writer, curator, and friend, in addition to a roster of a select group of then-unknown ‘‘emerging’’ artists. It took a lot of effort by the artists and me, as well as the interest of colleagues at alternative spaces, museums, independent curators, and a small group of collectors, to propel several into the curatorial and critical spotlight and, eventually, into the international marketplace. Revisiting the 1980s gallery–artist relationships, I find it striking that most small outposts mimicked the relationships of a family, with its interdependencies and disagreements, often leading to separations and eventually ending in divorce. Today, by contrast, New York galleries are more professional and exhibit a business acumen that has in turn radically transformed the artists’ role, to the degree that in seeking gallery representation , artists from around the world have appropriated the methods and strategies of ‘‘art as business.’’1 These and other aspects of the complex gallery–artist–market relationships have over the past three decades resulted in an array of scholarly publications focusing on the ‘‘architecture of the art market and the change from disinterested promoters and patrons to merchants and marketeers.’’2 The foregoing is especially relevant in considering the unique role of the select group of gallery owners herein invited to partake in an electronic interview. Rather than follow the route of art as commodity only, their determination and resolve has been and is to work in tandem with 89 90 Carla Stellweg their artists, nurturing and building their careers in a relationship that is first dialogic and second lucrative.3 In exploring their background and their role in the overall marketplace, it is remarkable how recent the history of the ‘‘art gallery’’ is: Galleries became a principal driving force and rose to prominence only in the 1880s!4 At that time a group of forwardthinking critics and dealers, joined by several adventuresome collectors, facing the academy’s closed doors, joined in a powerful alliance to start what is today commonly accepted as the marketplace. In examining the overused cliché that a gallery is the testing ground for artists seeking critical, curatorial, collecting, and institutional attention —the stage where they either make or break it—it also holds true that galleries would not exist if it were not for the risk-taking, innovative, and talented contemporary artists they choose to launch into the art market ’s ideology. This often chilling ideology of ‘‘money talks’’ can be opaque and offputting not just to the general public but especially to young and inexperienced artists whose work requires a complex set of exchange values.5 The gallery world is on the one hand a capitalist world while on the other hand galleries are also cultural institutions and serve as gatekeepers to the art world.6 The gallery is also a construction of social and financial networks—the nerve center from which the artist’s work is projected into the public sphere, resulting, one hopes, in renowned and prestigious public and private collections that at the same time validate all involved: the gallery, the artist, the collector, and the institution.7 From the many galleries that participate in today’s marketplace, the five New York–based galleries that agreed to participate in an electronic interview are Carolyn Alexander (Alexander and Bonin), Augusto Arbizo (11 Rivington), Josée Bienvenu (Josée Bienvenu Gallery), Louky Keysers Koning (LMAK), and Brent Sikkema (Sikkema Jenkins & Associates). Their example provides a slice of the broad-ranging current gallery and market realities. Their responses are not just useful but also clear evidence and a testimonial of their vision and mission, in addition to specific gallery practices and policies in regard to signing new artists and the kind of interchanges artists may expect. The five galleries all evolved from earlier experiences in the art world, with various incarnations that have shaped their current focus and identity . Notwithstanding each...