how to expand your general network – A Handbook for Emerging Artists

The fine arts industry offers all sorts of event types: gallery brunches, artist talks and preview dinners; work screenings, press conferences and afterparties; finissages, closed collector events etc. Exhibition openings and art fairs are the industries’ flagship events, and can feel intimidating because of their open social architecture. Whether they happen at galleries, art fairs, non-profits, museums or elsewhere, they don’t specify or demand a specific way of interaction. Primarily, openings exist for the public to be able to experience an artist’s manifested vision, their universe. Yet openings are just as much about the hosting institution, which the public gets to see in its newest form, its latest incarnation – which can be especially true in the case of curated group shows: who gets exhibited by which curator, and what does it imply about the current state of the venue?

Art events are social gatherings, and thus inherently feature randomly shifting opportunities.

While art events are usually based on the idea of experiencing art, they always also include social interactions at their core. This highlights the reality of the art world, which combines the idealism of artistic expression, with the realities of curiosity, networking and the art market. Newbies will quickly realize how rare it is for visitors to actually care about the exhibited work. People can be superficial, unfriendly or rude, which can overwhelm inexperienced or sensitive younglings. Might it be healthier to disregard openings altogether? After all, the studio offers a focused comfort zone with the possibility to pursue art making: where studios seem to incorporate pure idealism, art events can at worst feel to simply incorporate the bad breath of alcohol and capitalism.

Both statements are based in clichés though: essentially, both domains offer their own challenges. To progress, you need to both work and network, in order to steadily establish both your oeuvre and your visibility. Depending on your character and fears, your inexperience and insecurities can cloud your judgement: if you don’t know anyone in a scene, it will be unclear what to do, and how to ever belong. But as always, there’s value in expanding into the unknown.

Understand openings as free networking events that you can ride like waves, and experiment to find your place within them.

Understand openings as free networking events that you can ride like waves, and experiment to find your place within them: witness and note which people actually consider the exhibited art, who knows whom, and how crowds will form groups of attitude and mutual consent. See openings as opportunities to learn about your industry (about its various interaction modes, languages and key players), and appropriate them to become another part of your networking strategy. See them as what they are: events where people get to meet each other, unique because of their open social architecture that allows people to arrive randomly, unexpectedly, and without commitment. Use them to get to know your peers, who might turn out to become business acquaintances, artist collaborators, friends or lovers – and to ultimately find your flow of moving from one opening to the next: randomly, unexpectedly, and with the commitment you see fit. See them as opportunities to transcend your comfort zone and your knowledge of art, and to expand your social circle.

To reduce the threshold of attending to art events, consider forming a group of like-minded peers. This lets you schedule the event upfront, and will result in everyone being more motivated to attend. It also reduces the risk of being unaware of important events, since your peer group creates a heightened awareness of them. You can meet in someone’s studio or for a drink, then head to the event together, and end the evening discussing your experiences.

Here are various things to do at art openings (or other art events):

Experience the artworks, and expand your knowledge about them: With art right in front of you, of course you’ll want to see whether there’s anything to learn from the exhibited pieces. What do you feel? What do you experience? Has the work been done sloppily or is it well-crafted? Is the artist known or emerging? Do you know how the gallery got to collaborate with them? What are your thoughts about the specific way the works have been installed? What would you have done differently, and why? An event’s exhibited artworks represent the core connection to your own artistic practice, independently of whether you understand or enjoy it.
Study the handouts: Every exhibition will have handouts with prices, the artist’s CV and a text about the show. Read these to expand your knowledge about both art and gallery: what do you think about it? Is it written clearly and concisely? Are there new words or phrases you can remember and incorporate for your artist statement? Does the text use ideas that you can adapt? Do you know the person who wrote the text? If you enjoy the text, remember who wrote it – you might one day ask them to write about your own work.
Scout and Connect: Try to scout the attendants to understand who they are, what role they have, and whether they might be interesting to you. This can include fellow artists, collectors, critics, the gallery team (owner, gallery director, staff), the general public, etc. Try to understand who attracts you for their sensitivity or verbal finesse, who’s there only to get seen, who’s needy and pushy. Scouting isn’t about getting to know the right person, but to understand each person’s relevance to the art world, and to discover your potential mutual relevance. By increasing your knowledge about the scene’s players, you’ll also increase awareness of how you might eventually fit in.
Art events always also attract stereotypes: rich collectors, arrogant art students, know-it-all art critics and curators; but what about the others, the individuals that don’t fulfill a cliché? Find them, and see what happens once you connect.
Converse (“network”): Try to understand who’s interesting to you, and start a conversation with them – knowing that as a newbie, you’ll be invisible to most others for a while. That’s OK, since you don’t want anything from anyone: you’re not looking for an exhibition, a review, a solo show: you’re just here to understand and get to know others: to network. You can do that by talking about anything that’s interesting to both of you: the exhibited art and artist(s), the gallery; personal projects and challenges, etc. Be authentic and enjoy the other person’s presence. If you feel that they don’t enjoy yours, simply move on.

Stay sensitive of others stealing your focus and time: some people will push themselves between you and the event (sometimes even physically), and won’t stop monologizing about themselves. For whatever reason, they use you – they might be intoxicated, narcissistic, or just plain weird. Remember that you’re under no obligation to stick with them, and will sometimes have to excuse yourself in order to pursue your actual mission of getting to know and actually engage with people.

In case of interesting discussions, consider asking for contact information. This enables you to stay in touch via mail, or by simply forwarding your most recent newsletter. This gives the recipient the chance to see your work, and to subscribe to your newsletter.
Aim for the kill: If you want to approach someone who doesn’t know you, take a step back and calmly judge the situation: would you bother them by introducing yourself (they might be in an important conversation, could be intoxicated or simply busy)? Is there someone who could introduce you easily? Approach them sensitively and smartly, considering these circumstances: tell them who you are and that you appreciate their work, and whether they’d have a spare minute. Be humble and authentic, and stay open to the possibility of them not having time or energy for you – if this happens, ask them whether you could mail your request. Ask for their business card, and hand them yours.
Stay: This last point might be quintessential: don’t leave. Art events are social gatherings, and thus inherently feature randomly shifting opportunities. Instead of leaving once you experienced the exhibited art, stay and see what happens. This usually creates stronger opportunities that heading back home, and establishes yourself (to yourself) as someone who cares about both artworks and networking. You’ll notice new people arriving over time, and further opportunities with them. If the gallery is embedded in a local gallery network, consider visiting their neighbors as well.

Some artists find representation without having searched for it: a gallery approaches them on their own. Maybe they saw someone’s work at the art school’s open days, or a professor or mutual acquaintance mentioned the work. Either way: this is rare. If you haven’t been approached by a gallery, but want to establish contact, you need to work on expanding your network. This will help you to create organic engagement opportunities.

Consider the following strategies:

Understand the gallery’s network, and embed yourself within it: Understand which artists and gatekeepers the gallery is surrounded by, and see whether you can gradually increase contact with them. This is easiest done at gallery events (openings, artist talks, curated tours, art fairs, etc), where you can listen in, observe and judge. Attending these public events creates the chance to get invited to the more private circles that often happen alongside: an opening dinner, or drinks in the gallery’s back room. These occasions are not meant for you to push your work; rather, they should serve as a platform to understand the gallery’s environment, and to organically establish connections. The more intimate the setting you get into, the less the situation will be about you. Understand that everyone usually has an agenda to push: the gallerist might want to generate sales or network with guests; the staff might be busy attending to collectors; fellow artists might see a curator they’d want to talk to. That’s why you want to be both natural and sensitive whenever you get invited to an “inner circle” event: you don’t want to come across as pushy or needy.
Understand your supporters and their potential to gain gallery awareness: We all know people with connections; your existing network might include artists, collectors, professors and assistants, family and friends, etc. If you’re lucky, one of these has a direct connection to the gallery you’re interested in (or to a gallery you don’t yet know of). Maybe one of them is interested in highlighting your work? While directly asking someone for such a favor puts them on the spot, sometimes supporters think of this on their own. This drastically changes the dynamic to your potential advantage: it’s nearly impossible for an artist to approach a gallery, yet a third party can often manage this without resulting in weirdness. Understand that while some supporters won’t be interested in helping you, others might do it in pushy, detrimental ways. Ideally, the third party checks back with you, to understand how to adequately highlight your work to a gallery – which henceforth knows about you. This doesn’t guarantee their professional interest, but helps to connect a step further: you’d now be more visible than before. This is true even if they forget about you, since the next time someone drops your name, they are more likely to remember it.
Connect to the gallery’s represented artists: While anyone in your network can be helpful in generating gallery awareness, a gallery’s represented artists can often be a natural point of contact (this can be especially true if your network doesn’t feature anyone else who might be able to help you). Can you connect to some of them? If you don’t know any of a gallery’s represented artist yet, consider visiting the gallery’s public events to gradually try to change that.
Once you naturally jell with someone, the mutual interest for each other might result in worthwhile discussions about each other’s work, the state of the art world, etc. Drinks might follow. Studio visits. These kinds of first steps could lead to mutual support (when installing shows, moving studios, needing advice, etc) or even friendship; they could lead to collaborations on specific works or exhibitions, which sometimes can generate the galleries’ awareness of you. Understand that your efforts will usually only be as efficient as they are authentic: faking interest in artists (to get their galleries’ attention) will rarely work out, and has the real risk of you coming across as egoistic and unlikable. As with all networking efforts, it’s best to do them in a way that inherently feels good to everyone who’s involved; this way, the process rewards itself.
Don’t ask represented artists to highlight your work to their gallery. They might feel their trust betrayed, might see you as competition, or might simply not feel comfortable proposing a business deal to their gallery (read the comments at the end of this chapter for details).
Expand your general network: Instead of directly aiming for a gallery’s attention, expand your general network to include various layers of gatekeepers: local artists, curators, art writers, non-profit venues, etc. This long-term strategy strengthens your position in the local art scene, and makes it more likely for you to get to know someone of the gallery in question. The art world is fluid: people leave their jobs to work at other places (institutions, other galleries, non-profits, etc), and in other functions: an assistant from three years ago could be tomorrow’s gallery director or head curator of an institution you’d like to collaborate.
Consider non-local galleries and networks: Instead of looking for local galleries only, consider which non-local artists you know. Are they connected to galleries, non-profit art spaces, or do they curate on their own? Visiting them might expand your network in entirely unexpected ways, with the additional benefit of you getting to know another art scene. Maybe your contact can tell you about galleries that might be of interest to you? Find out about efficient scheduling: a week with many openings or an art fair can lead to dozens of organic networking opportunities.
Instead of connecting to non-local artists in your network, you can also research the represented artists of specific non-local galleries. Consider reaching out to them: maybe there’s time for a meeting or studio visit to discuss their work? In case of actual curiosity on your behalf, this can be a potent way to expand your network, and potentially, over the years, even get the gallery’s attention. While finding a gallery might be your driving force, refrain from solely judging your efforts by the outcome (to have found a gallery representation); instead, focus on the process: to have gotten in touch with fellow artists and their work. You can never know what this will bring to you in the upcoming years.
Spot disinterest: Understand that you can’t force interest in you or your work. While in your mind your work might be a perfect fit, this doesn’t say anything about the realities and interests of the gallery in question. As with dating, it takes two to tango. When you notice conversations or situations to be imbalanced (gallery staff interrupting you, not listening or being attentive, etc.), then accept this disinterest. You can try to see whether over the months, someone else in the gallery shows more curiosity, or whether a specific person simply was in a bad mood; but understand that mutual likeability is random, and often can’t be influenced. Don’t let this frustrate you, but accept such implicit rejections, and continue your search elsewhere.

Refrain from asking others to highlight your work to galleries. Even though you might envision this to be easy for them, you simply cannot know, which usually makes it inappropriate: It puts the burden on someone else, and asks for quite a commitment to your work: even if the person you ask truly likes your work, they might not feel comfortable highlighting it to others – especially to potential business collaborators. Asking others to push your work is usually not organic, but forceful: a demand that puts someone on the spot, requiring them to either comply or shy away – both resulting in a weird power imbalance. Trying to be your own brand ambassador is more respectful and sensitive, and has the advantage of personal growth and control about how external parties are approached. Instead of asking someone to highlight your work, wait and see whether they might offer this on their own. Don’t expect it though: it’s unlikely to happen.

Tag: how to expand your general network

How do I establish organic engagement with a gallery, specifically when looking for representation?