The excerpt from Winkelman's "How to Start and Run a Commercial Art Gallery" attempts to make a scholarly synopsis of the skills and know-how necessary to operate an independent art gallery, beginning with the history of such galleries. Winkelman explains that in the old days it was more common that an "art dealer" rarely dealt in the buying and selling of art exclusively - often they were sellers of all manner of home decor aimed primarily at an affluent clientele. It is pointed out that the romanticized vision of an art dealer elevating the relevance of some underground artist is often a gross misrepresentation of how the art trade really is. There is, however, a certain degree of truth in regards to the shift in consciousness from being curio salesmen to legitimate patrons of the arts, as cited by the example of Paul Durand-Ruel who helped establish Impressionism as a permanent fixture in the art world. Yet in the end, both aspects (sales and patronage) play a large role in the modern art gallery by incorporating blue chip artwork from reputable and well established artists as well as taking certain gambles on new up-and-coming talent.
Winkelman transitions from history into a rough but practical guide to climbing the ladder to gallery success, as well as ways for enterprising individuals to work their way into the gallery circuit. This section boils down to Winkelman explaining the essentials of running a gallery, such as deciding how one markets their specific art market, branding oneself, forging an identity, and how to physically exhibit work inside the gallery.
In general I feel Winkelman speaks to the reader as a season colleague offering advice to the young art enthusiast with big dreams. He does a decent job of keeping things seem attainable and give the up and down nature of the art market some sense of order and patterning. At least in terms of how to make oneself fit the mold of what is expected of all dealers.
To supplement our reading, we took a trip down to the Catherine Edelman and Stephen Daiter Galleries. Seeing the two side by side offered an interesting opportunity to compare and contrast the various types of personalities and ideologies that are active in the art world today. What made the double visit particularly relevant was the fact that both galleries were in the same category of art, with slightly different views. For the purposes of this blog, I will not go too much into the variables of physical layout, because both galleries share a nearly identical architectural style and geographic location.
To me the Edelman gallery definitely exemplified the contemporary eclectic photography/fine art gallery. Our tour guide was able to explain to us how the Edelman Gallery was really built from the ground up for the sole purpose of forwarding photography as a legitimate art form. Catherine herself seemed to take special interest in local and emerging artists who work in a primarily fine art style. We learned that throughout the gallery's history, Edelman sought to bring cutting-edge photographers and artists into the mainstream, as well as marketing these artists to the appropriate clientele seeking new and trendy forms of photography. Seeing the gallery's current and past shows, I can definitely see that Edelman is keen on artists who find their own creative niche rather than those who are outstanding among many others in their field. In essence the gallery draws its strength from providing the public with new progressive takes on photography, while putting it into the context of a museum-like experience as a way of subliminally legitimizing its quirky relevance.
The Daiter Gallery, on the other hand, was vigorously dedicated to exhibiting highly prominent documentary photojournalists of the past century. I would not categorize the Daiter Gallery as being cutting edge in terms of it's subject matter, since they clearly pride themselves on exhibiting what they consider to be the best of the best photography. While the Edelman Gallery has a mix of contemporary photography and mixed media artwork, the Daiter Gallery specializes in only one thing. That's not to say that specialization is a bad thing, but the atmosphere of the Daiter Gallery was definitely more museum-like in it's layout and mission statement. The main difference I noticed was that the Daiter Gallery only exhibits the work of one photographer at a time, choosing to display a "greatist hits retrospective" of that artist's career.
I feel like getting the chance to see both galleries offered an interesting cross-section of the fields in which we artists can apply ourselves, and what types of art we can hope to sell if we seek a gallery as a creative outlet.
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