Since around December, I have been refusing to participate in political TV shows. The reason, in the context of this post, is not important. And as a result of this—plus an active refusal to advertise investments and real estate—Facebook started serving me content as an artist.
An immense number of marketing courses for artists. How to sell, how to exhibit, what to participate in. Then platforms, then some art magazines where you can publish your works for money. Galleries where you can exhibit for money. Paid exhibitions in Venice during the Biennale. Databases of 5,000 collectors worldwide. And the more I read, the more diverse things they advertise.
I saw a huge market that grew out of the artist's desire to promote their art, out of a lack of understanding of the art environment, and out of the artist's naivety in practical matters. Upon closer inspection, all of this is not worth a hill of beans, because the people creating these services understand the art environment like the blind men feeling the elephant in the famous parable. However, the professional art media market also lives off of artists. Once, Milton Esterow, the creator of ARTnews, told me that out of a circulation of 50,000, 60% is bought by artists who want to read about collectors and successful artists. To understand what they need to do to get onto the pages of a magazine "for collectors."
What is my point here? This entire market stands on the insecurity of the emerging artist. Today he wakes up: "I am a genius, nobody understands me because I am ahead of my time"; tomorrow: "I am a nobody, unoriginal, uninteresting." A grueling and exhausting swing. And that is why my main advice to artists is: look for like-minded people. They create the environment in which you can grow without wasting time and energy on fruitless efforts. How? The most generalized advice was given in a humorous form by the late Joseph Backstein: YOU NEED TO HANG OUT.
