Contemporary Art Gallery Interviews
August 30, 2007
One of the best ways to find out how things are going in the contemporary art market is to ask questions of the people who own and run contemporary art galleries. Of course galleries have their own areas of specialization or even niche marketing. So, the more people you talk to, the more answers you will get.
Artists, collectors and aspiring gallery owners need to understand the gallery market in contemporary art. The popularization of art fairs is only one trend that galleries deal with, often participating with their own artists. Another major trend is online websites that have grown in number as artists, collectors, galleries and critics have all made their entry into this newer medium.
I write and read on contemporary art because of business and personal interest, so any time I can get opinion from someone who is involved I like to pass it along to interested readers - artists, gallery owners, collectors and other writers. There are five good interviews that offer some opinion on contemporary art gallery affairs listed here. Let me know if you like them and I will pick out some more.
PAUL SHARPE - Chelsea, New York City
PETER STRUB of Marshall Arts Gallery
Painter and Gallerist - STELA BARRETO
Davidson Contemporary: MICHAEL SWENEY
Gallery Interview: TIMOTHY TEW
PAUL DORRELL Leopold Gallery Kansas City
These gallery owners and directors all have a take on contemporary art from their locale and market. Paul Sharpe, Peter Strub, Stela Barreto, Michael Sweney, Timothy Tew and Paul Dorrell have major input into their galleries as well as their local contemporary art markets. Also, when you read the articles, links are provided to the gallery websites, so you can see some really very interesting artist portfolios at each gallery website.
If you have or know of a gallery that specializes in contemporary art, and they would participate in an interview, please contact me. I am always interested in communicating with gallery owners and directors.
- Daniel Ferris
The art market is not immune to the burgeoning of the new communications media. Using the formats of print, television, and the internet many new contemporary art magazines and programs will be available free of charge worldwide. This has made artists, galleries and collectors much more aware of one another.
This has begun, and I believe will accelerate, the inclusion of many more artists and collectors into a mainstream milieu of the art magazine world. The traditions of a gallery’s representation of artists from one locale or even one nation is continuing to lose ground. International media is allowing more international arts awareness and arts business. The bricks and mortar art galleries with local art critics talking it up, or down, in the local newspaper is giving way to a spectrum of developments - mainly the magazine.
Critics and dealers can certainly see an international style in art that is becoming more predominant by the decade. While the introduction of new styles and media accelerates on the contemporary art scene, even the traditional institutions of the art world must change.
Artists already show work in multiple locales, and galleries work in cooperation from state to state or nation to nation. But these changes will compound until display of images to any collector and the resulting gallery sales are done far less in the bricks and mortar of the past. Contemporary art is still affordable enough to make shipping and insurance nonprohibitive. Greatly improved technology for viewing the art, communicating with living artists, transacting sales will make the initial viewing of the artwork in a magazine a very good first look.
How will these images be displayed? By magazines in all of the media - whether print, video or internet. Contemporary art magazines can display excellent art for artists, galleries or the collector quickly and cheaply. With digital technology the art can be further inspected, and with scans or high res digital photo enlargements the art can be inspected almost microscopically.
The future belongs to some version of the contemporary art magazine. The more interesting contemporary art magazines show images, talk about collector and artist concerns, review changes in the art market with gallery owners. This is the reason art magazines will continue to grow in the contemporary art world.
One excellent example of this phenomenon is the Contemporary Art Gallery Magazine for Artist and Collector Business. This art mag for artists and collectors makes good sense. CAG has several interesting departments. Contemporary Art Gallery Magazine provides the following articles for the art market.
- DF
