My Art Belongs in Museums, How do I Get it There?

The museum is the Hall of Fame for artists, the apogee of apogees, where the best art gets trophied up for all to behold-- preserved, protected, exalted, and honored in perpetuity. Beyond any doubt, artists want their art in museums-- museum acquisition is the ultimate validation of everything artists live and work for. The curators, those high pulpiteers of aesthetic discernment say, "We want this." You say, "Take it." And the rest is history. It's that simple.

So you make art; you think you're pretty good-- well, better than pretty good-- you think you're good enough to be in museums. No, that's not strong enough. You know you're good enough to be in museums. Now what? How do you get your masterworks where they rightfully belong?

The easy part is the art world is small. You don't have to go far to get noticed, and the best way to do that is to immerse yourself in the local scene. Go to art events and shows and get to know the players-- artists, dealers, gallery owners, critics, collectors, writers, internet art people, curators, and so on. Then gradually get involved, participate, help out, join in, and generally make yourself available, keeping in mind-- and this is important-- that the journey is not all about you. Concern for the big picture and light-play on your personal agenda pay big dividends and are essential to get where you want to go.

Politics play a significant role in art world ascent, at least initially, and some artists have advantages over others. For example, doing the goose ahead of time in grad school is an effective, albeit expensive, way to get in the mix, but it's not essential. No matter what kind of connections you have going in, talent and vision ultimately prevail, not who you know. That said, knowing people is better than not knowing them, so make sure you do the rounds.

When those moments come to show your art or talk it up-- and they will-- make it snappy, soft peddle the outcome, back off and let it be. Don't glom on and sell, drone endlessly, force feed, or wax parasitic. Yes, people have to understand your work to like it, but if they have questions, they'll ask. Start leaning and they sense the neediness, even when it's not overt, so make your intro and move to the next contestant. Remember, people have to like you as well as your art, and the basics come in mighty handy here like being polite, respectful, and doing those things your parents taught you when you were little. That's the truth; believe it.

But back to the museums, your interim goal, accomplished in large part by doing all of the above, is to publicly show your art. Your end goal, which may take time, is to get one or more solo shows. Group shows are difficult in terms of getting your message out; they don't provide adequate context for those in the know to assess your full range of talents. A group show is certainly a step in the right direction, but you constantly want to move toward solo opportunities.

What's interesting here is that once you're ensconced in the local scene, you don't necessarily have to rely on established galleries to get your art seen, and this is where schmoozing and showing intersect. You can solo at an alternative space or even at a space nobody knows, IF you can turn out the right people-- all the ones you've met and treated kindly in your art world adventures-- and IF your art's got moxie, this could be the beginning. You see, the main way art ends up in established galleries (and subsequently, in museums) is that dealers get tips from artists, collectors, and other in-the-loopers who like you, come to your show in the middle of nowhere, see your potential, talk you up, AND word travels fast.

As an aside, the traditional method of promoting yourself-- sending slides-- is pretty much a myth or, at best, a crapshoot, especially when you send the stuff to galleries who don't know you. For this to work, your art has to be so astonishingly unbelievably amazing that a gallery has no choice but to take you-- and that's astonishingly unbelievably rare. Personal contact is the ticket, or at least personal referral, because then each side has an idea of what the other side's up to before the game begins. With the abundance of excellent artists out there these days, sending slides off into the cosmos is too abstract and remote a way to make a dent.

"But I'm still not in museums, and you promised..."

OK. OK. Curators. Let's talk curators. In the overwhelming majority of cases, museum ascendancy starts with dealers, and in order for your art to make it to curators, it first has to pass muster with dealers. Dealers spend their lives looking at art, they survive by selling art, and that means they're extremely good at spotting art that people perceive as having value. Curators know this. Curators also know (as should you) which dealers have good or better track records of locating the kinds of art that museums like the most. Do you know how curators know this? Because dealers spend years, often decades, doing the same art scene shoulder rub that you're going to start doing as soon as you finish this article. See how this all connects up?

Anyway, now things get serious. When a dealer pitches art or an artist to a curator (usually done gingerly-- hard sells don't work with curators either), that dealer's reputation is on the line. But wait; there's more. The curator's reputation is also on the line, because the curator, in turn, pitches the art to the museum's director and/or board of directors. And if a curator's record of acquiring art plays out as substandard, that curator will be repositioned somewhere on the outer edge of the galaxy or otherwise relegated to oblivion. So you see, this business of getting art into museums is not taken lightly. Everyone's got to believe, and believe strongly enough to bump that art up to the next level of scrutiny-- culminating with critics, fellow curators, writers, historians, scholars, and of course, the general public-- those museum goers who pay to see the picks.

That's how this museum deal works. Now here are a few extra wheel-greasers to get you there faster:

* Be able to explain and discuss your art and support it intellectually, especially if it's cerebrally driven. When people ask, you have to answer. Dealers and curators are not in the business of filling in blanks-- that's your job. They want finished product, not work in progress, cognitively or otherwise.

* Different curators acquire different types of art. Additionally, curatorial acquisitions are made within the contexts of the histories of the museums or collections they're acquired for. Learn which institutions are most favorable to your type of art. While you're at it, do the same with dealers.

* Many curators (and dealers) tend to follow the lead of other curators, critics, dealers, and influential collectors. Learn the hierarchy and gravitate toward the leaders.

* Get press. The more coverage you get and the better it is, the more comfortable curators (or anybody else) feels around your work. Prepackaged proof of your significances means those who notice you have to spend less time concocting justifications for taking action.

* Get a following. The greater the demand for your art, the more dealers who represent you, the more active those dealers are, the more willing those dealers are to haul your art from Basel to Biennale, the sooner you'll hit the museums. Curators notice artists with international profiles. They also notice the dealers responsible for creating those profiles.

* Be aware that, in addition to the merits of your art, dealers and curators make decisions based on your personality, asking prices, and how easy you are to work with.

* Artists occasionally get support based on potential to produce museum-worthy work; they convince with their visions in advance of their output. If your art's not there yet, but you know where you're going, can conceptualize it out, convey your master plan, and people like what they hear, speculative funding may be in the offing.

Dealers, collectors, critics, and other art scene insiders continually beat the bushes for fresh art and talented artists. In addition, they continually evaluate already established artists in terms of how their careers play out, whether they continue to evolve, whether their latest work advances beyond all previous work, and how their art and their progress stack up against the art and progress of all the other artists out there. In other words, everybody watches everything all the time, and you, dear artist, are on the radar.

"But everybody's seen my art and I'm still not in museums. What's with that?"

Could be time to step back, reassess, regroup, or even lower your expectations. You want perspective? Pick up an old issue of Art in America, maybe five, maybe ten years back. Yesterday's yawners may be today's toppers; rookie wonders flame out. For every artist that survives, many more go poof. Museum accessions are no different. Just because art makes it into museums doesn't mean it stays there. Styles change, trends fizzle, today's big poop becomes tomorrow's white elephant, artists vanish, curators make mistakes, some artists are better talkers than arters and it takes time for everybody to figure that out, and so on.

Then again, you may be so far ahead of the game you'll be dust before anybody gets your essence. Don't laugh; it happens. If your art's got the chops, it ultimately ends up exactly where it belongs, and if that's museums, so be it. Or if your art's already museum-quality, but you're an asocial wacky riddled with syndromes and nobody can come near you, you'll likewise be enthroned in absentia. In the meantime, go about your business, don't be a nudge, make the best art you can make for as long as you can make it, and take pride in the fact that at least you're holding up your end of the deal. In case you're interested, posthumous accessions stay accessed far more often than art that gets politicked in now while everyone's still alive and self-serving. Small consolation, huh?

Thanks to Catharine Clark and Jack Hanley for their help with this article.