Art Assassin: How Do I Get People to See My Work?

Make it stand out

Rózsa is the founding director of Arcadia Missa in London. Arcadia Missa is a gallery and publisher. Rózsa is one of our brand new advice columnists focusing on art! Specifically pricing work, approaching galleries, exhibition curation, artwork production, promoting and discussing your practice and more.

You Asked: How do I get people to see what I do?

This is one of the questions that I am most frequently asked during professional practice lectures. The main thing I’ve come to realise over the years is that because the industry is so competitive, many people feel compelled to expend too much energy on this—or worrying about it—at the expense of their practice. Almost no one has enough time, so the time that you do have is always better spent on your artwork. 

We currently have more channels of self-promotion than ever before. Although meritocracy is for sure a Tory myth, there is the possibility that you can find your own way for your work to be seen by people, and if many appreciate it, then commercial success doesn’t solely rely on a small number of gatekeepers.

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In my role as a gallerist my job is to provide a platform for more people to encounter the work of the artists I exhibit and represent, however all of these artists were in various ways presenting their own work before our collaboration started. I’d always recommend that you first focus on your work, because that is always the thing that ultimately has to stand up for itself at a certain point—whether you know you have a big exhibition coming up or not—and in the meantime, whilst doing so, put it out there in whatever form you feel comfortable with that is in keeping with the type of work you make. Bringing together your practice and self-presentation often proves more rewarding than using too much energy on trying to find existing structures to promote what you are doing. Creating your own context is often an important part of understanding your own practice and furthering the work itself. For instance, this could be in the form of writing articles that give insight into some of the research that goes behind your art, or organising DIY exhibitions with friends, putting your work on social media and/or making sure you have a website, or even putting on your own events which serve not only to create your own space of community and foster the conversations that are so valuable to all creatives, but also allow those who don’t know what you do an access point to get to know your work.

You Asked: Are most ppl awful and up themselves because that’s what it feels like?

In short, yes. This kind of ties into what I was saying with the previous question, creating your own platform and finding your allies that way rather than having your time and resources frustratingly used up trying to decipher how to get people to engage with the work is always more satisfying. I’d imagine you’d encounter “awful” people in most industries, but contemporary art probably does have an unbalanced amount of arrogance running through it. This could be due to the fact that privilege benefits precarious labour, or that it is an industry built around the cult of the individual, or that at one end of it there is a huge amount of money at play, or (realistically) a combination of these factors. So protecting your energy and having good people around you is truly the best long-term strategy.

Words: Rózsa Farkas