Notes

Exactly How Galleries Help Their Artistes
Tange Schiedam

A regular reader of the news has actually most likely seen headings about a Damien Hirst program, a record price fetched for a Jeff Koons sculpture, or a new work of street art by Banksy. And there's some visibility to the touchstones of an artist's trajectory: group and solo programs at galleries, price appreciation and a excellent showing at auctions, and ultimately an appearance in a museum program or collection.




What's less immediately visible to the larger world is the function that galleries play, and how a gallery itself ends up being recognized. There are a handful of so-called "mega-dealers" whose names might be familiar even to those on the fringes of the art world, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Speed, and David Zwirner amongst them. But galleries are still the beating heart of the art world, the system through which lots of artists discover their method to organizations, the world's terrific collections, or simply the homes of people who enjoy their work.

Galleries have multiple functions, both noticeable and invisible: to nurture and support their artists, typically by going above and beyond the typical work of putting on shows, promoting their artists, and offering the works; and to supplying services such as monetary management or book publishing, in order to help their artists focus more completely on their work.

"There's the things that you see in our gallery that remain in front of the scenes, which are undoubtedly the exhibits, the publications that we make, then there are things that lag the scenes, which could be whatever from dealing with an artist on their archives or working on research for an exhibition for several years or maybe looking into artworks that went through the gallery in terms of secondary market," says Julia Joern, a partner at David Zwirner.

Galleries can be found in all ages, shapes, and sizes too. Art Basel and UBS's Art Market | 2017 report estimated there were roughly 296,000 dealers and gallery companies in 2016. Simply under 40% of them had annual sales of less than $500,000, while a similar share had sales amounting to between $1 million and $10 million. Nearly two thirds of all galleries used five or fewer individuals, and just 4% had 20 or more staff members.

Despite size, at the core of a gallery's identity is its "program." The term usually describes the roster of artists a gallery represents, but can also explain a conceptual framework or location of focus that guides that roster, in addition to other activities such as collaborations with other galleries, efficiencies and lectures, or reasonable looks. Many will worry that their main role is to facilitate their artists' production of great work, in any way they can.

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