Yesterday’s blog dabbled a bit in talking about things to keep in mind when searching for gallery representation and after a lot of feedback from all of you reading my blunders I decided to expand on it and provide a more in-depth look into what tactics could land you your first gallery gig. So expect this week’s blogs to be focused solely on this topic.

When looking for representation, more or less everything is important: from having a well-repaired CV and exhibition portfolio, a nicely designed and fully equipped portfolio of our works (not the same as an exhibition portfolio), to actually having some experience with the art world and knowing the basics of what drives the gallery world’s decisions.

But let’s start at the beginning. Searching for a gallery isn’t something that any fresh graduate or postgraduate should primarily focus on, unless they have already had a few exhibitions and have taken their time to learn about how the art world works.

In a prefect world, our college or academy would have provided us with abundant opportunities to get acquainted with the gallery system and we already worked with a few curators during our studies. But if your school is anything like the Slovenian Academy, after graduating you’ll be vaguely aware of the existence of curators and galleries, mainly from black and white pictures taken somewhere between 1983 and 84.

And if that’s your luck and you’re fresh out of college with zero experience in the field, getting some first would make your application much more appealing to any gallerist. But if you’re still studying and your college isn’t providing you with enough opportunities, you should start searching for them yourself, and do so as soon as possible. 

Having a student tag on ones chest gives one a lot of permission and leeway when approaching galleries. Sure you may have nothing to show, but that’s not the point; you’re getting friendly with the people who work there at the very beginning of your career, where you’re not there to ask for representation, but to introduce yourself and get immersed into the actual conversations that take place in the art world.

Because unlike the safe heavens of any educational institution, where academia grasses on ideologically aggregated pastures, the real world doesn’t give a damn about Wittgenstein — unless maybe in the form of a wonderfully hilarious movie made by Derek Jarman.

What the real world of art does care about is mingling and using the medium of an exhibition to propagate ones standing in society. 

If then your schtick is trying to get into the system by playing this tune (and you’re not bothered by the oxymoron of being falsely true to the divinity of art), reading the marvellous book The philosophy of Andy Warhol could give you a lot of information on how the great Andy himself placed himself inside the system and still retained absolute artistic integrity — well, historically speaking, James Harvey would surely tell us otherwise.

Now, of course this doesn’t mean that anyone who has already left art school or never went to one (you really don’t need to in order to be a successful artist, but it does help a lot with defining ones style and focus). 

No matter our age, going into the arts is a lot like entrepreneurship; you can start in any part of your life, but truth be told, those of us that need to crate art as much as we need to breathe and live for being part of the art world in some way, shape or form, will obviously start sooner and such a head start can mean a greater possibility of success.

But no matter if art was the only thing on your mind since you learned how to walk or if it took you 50 years to find your true calling, starting yesterday should be on all of our agendas. And tomorrow we’ll talk about how to formulate that first hello by discussing CVs.