The Importance of Showing Up: Building Community in the Art World

There is one question that rests on the tongues of all emerging and new artists, and one I hear so often, I essentially have a scripted response to it. 

Q: “How do artists get noticed by galleries?”

A: “Keep showing up.” 

Now this one sentence is the crux of what I believe is most imperative to an artist’s success in the early stages of their career. You can be a generational talent within the studio, but if you never leave it, how will anyone know?

There is a complexity to this one sentence answer, and it involves multiple facets and interpretations of what “showing up” is. So, first and foremost: 

Keep showing up in person

I want to let you in on a little secret: the art world is tiny. If it’s six degrees of separation in regular life, it has to be no more than two in the art market. It’s a small circle of trust, one that can be open to all if you can navigate it, but still, small. Everybody knows everybody, everybody knows somebody, and for better or for worse, familiarity (and I shouldn’t admit this, but likeability) is often a key factor in access to art spaces, galleries, collectives, and groups. I’m sorry to those more introverted, but it is an inconvenient truth. So: Go to openings! Go to workshops! Go to art walks! Go to art talks! I’ve mentioned it before and I will continue to mention it forever, if a curator / gallerist / creative director  knows your face well enough, you begin to enter that circle of trust, and when we know you, it’s much easier for us to take a second look at your portfolio, entertain conversations about working together, or make time for that studio visit. 

Although it was technically a theory on urban planning and urban behaviour, I find myself returning to Jane Jacobs theory from The Death and Life of Great American Cities about “micro-interactions” and applying it to the art world. The “micro-interaction” in essence is a nod, a wave, a small acknowledgment of understanding and familiarity that happens between people within your daily routines that enhance the social fabric of the community. You wave at the same shopkeeper at the bottom of your street when you leave your apartment, nod at the same dog-walker, smile at the same bird-feeder on a bench, etc. Over time these repeated interactions become part of your routine and ultimately make you feel like a thread in the tapestry of the neighbourhood. Jane Jacobs posits it is the small human interactions of daily life, not grand structures, that are the lifeblood of genuine urban vitality. So the same goes for me as a gallerist, at work, if I see an artist at openings, have them engage with earnestness and curiosity during art talks, or even just a friendly smile, hello, how are you, and goodbye when visiting our space, perhaps subconsciously, you’ve become part of our community.  This may be a simple way of putting it, because your art practice is more than just a “brand”, but repetition helps brand recognition. As an aside, If you need help with brand recognition, Artist Ally founder XAV is the perfect person to talk to. 

Returning to the idea of the smallness of the art world, gallerists, consultants, advisors, artists, and curators all talk to each other – the amount of artists we’ve taken on at the request of a curator, artist, or gallery director we have a relationship with is much higher than you think. As they say, and it always rings true, word of mouth is the best form of marketing. Even if you might not be the right fit for our gallery, If I like you as a person, I really don’t mind going the extra mile to put in a good word, nudge you in the right direction, or try to find a fit for your artwork within my professional network. That being said, also respect curators, gallerists, and directors time as if it were your own, they are fielding countless submissions and proposals, so don’t be too pushy or desperate, it can quickly get irritating and sour perceptions. It’s a very fine balance to strike as an artist, the proverbial tightrope walk of promoting oneself without being a nuisance. It does take a certain skill or tact. Artist Ally can help you learn the choreography. An initial introduction (either through email or social media, typically the most accepted forms of outreach), and a courteous follow up is enough, if you’re still not getting the answer you are looking for, persistence is not always the key.

Gallerist Word of Caution: Be very careful what you say or how you behave in art spaces, there is an inverse consequence that arises out of the closeness of the art world, and that is gossip does get around. So if you’re bad mouthing another artist, or acting unprofessionally, it might not just be the room you were in that finds out about it. Those in the know always aim to protect each other.

With the notion of community in mind, I must reveal the less obvious, but important extension of the sentence, “keep showing up.” 

Keep showing up, not just for yourself, but for others 

Never underestimate the power of solidarity and the value of supporting others beyond yourself. Don’t expect or do it for reciprocity, but in turn, the odds are in your favour. It’s a well-known saying but the director of a gallery I love, respect, and look up to, once said “rising tides help all boats,” the idea that success isn’t insular or isolated; the health of an art market is a cumulation of the sum of its parts, and others success doesn’t always come at the expense of your own. When one artist gets hot, it attracts attention, but that gaze isn’t always hyper-focused, it may wander to an artist’s contemporaries, friends, and professional partners. 

Something I’ve noticed both in the Toronto and Barcelona arts landscape is the growing sense of solidarity and community building among the emerging artists and galleries, which I wholeheartedly believe has fostered growth of all. I will pull another art world adjacent example that is analogous to this idea, that of literary writing coteries. A writing coterie is small group of writers (and others) bound together more by friendship and habitual association than by a common literary cause or style that might unite a school or movement. Famous examples include the Wilton Circle of the 16th Century surrounding Mary Sidney including Edmund Spenser, Sir John Davies, and Samuel Daniel and by extension Philip Sidney, all significant contributors to the english literary canon, or the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, invaluable to American cultural theory and literature. These groups worked together to influence, inspire, lift up, and bounce ideas off each other in order to grow, and same goes for artists: talk to one another, critique each other, continue to have conversations to sharpen your practice, and when the opportunities present themselves, champion each other and show up for their exhibitions and projects, no matter how big or small. Friends fill rooms, and full rooms are always good optics for emerging artists - the support alone encourages, substantiates, and validates the hard work of every artist. A positive feedback loop if you will. It is hard to quantify, but us gallerists can sense when an artist is confident in their practice, which in turn, leads to stronger work. 

I want to draw a local example of this in practice: Tacit Collective is a Toronto based online art gallery and design consultancy featuring a roster of talented emerging women artists, and over time, these artists began to know each other, meet with each other, and what once started as professional relationships between the artists turned into real, tangible friendships, and it is marvellous to see them all consistently show up for each other at exhibitions and virtually online through their socials. They have become organic and earnest ambassadors for each other and I can say first hand it has helped grow their careers and cultivated healthy and honest professional development. 

Building on that, art circles help in another way: by talking to each other, artists also protect and guard themselves from professional mistakes, challenges, and exploitative situations. You can warn each other about shady characters in the art world (and trust me, there’s loads) like sleazy art dealers, shady collectors, and possible scams – there are countless of these traps out there taking advantage of eager, naïve or unaware artists. Stay tuned, as I will cover this topic in a later article.

Gallerist Word of Caution: If you are an artist at another artist’s opening / exhibition, be mindful not to be constantly talking about your own artwork and practice – it is a bit of a faux-pas. If you are to talk about your work, the conversation should happen organically, and you should be able to tell when others are genuinely curious. However, understand everyone in the room is gathered to celebrate the work and achievement of those who are exhibiting, treat the moment as such.

Keep Showing Up Online

This aspect of your professional development is perhaps more in XAV’s wheelhouse, but I would be remiss not to mention it here. The landscape of the art world is changing rapidly, and it’s no longer just galleries and art spaces that are the cultural lighthouses for the art world, social media and the internet has become a keystone to awareness and artist promotion. Galleries and curators are no longer just looking at the yearly batch of Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master’s of Fine Arts students to find the next crop of artistic talent, Instagram and self-published newsletters have become an invaluable resource for art professionals to curate their rosters and exhibitions.  But good online presence takes work and consistency, as well as a cohesive strategy. Aligning with what we just mentioned in the last section, it affords other artists and friends and incredibly easy opportunity to find and promote your work. A new artist I have been absolutely loving recently I found through one of our gallery artists sharing a painting on social media. Two weeks later I was speaking face to face with said artist. 

I know it sounds cliché, and you hear it everywhere, but there is a reason it is oft-repeated. Putting yourself out there really is the trick. Rejection will happen, you will be ignored by art world professionals,and things might not always go as expected, but steeling yourself to this, keeping at your practice, networking with other artists, asking for honest opinions and critiques, and continuing to show up is the best way to grow your career. It’s not always easy, but it is simple. 

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