Art
Sascha Gianella´s Tips for artists
The current situation with the Corona virus is extremely difficult for artists. All exhibitions in galleries, restaurants,clubs and hotels have been canceled. What can the artists do? They have invested money and time in producing their artworks and setting up their exhibitions.
Sascha Gianella, an Australian curator and advisor of almost three decades, gives Vivamost some “suggestions:
1. Up to date www – include a landing page for an email sign-up on your Home page – or a simple link to sign up. Also put a link underneath to view the exhibition.
2. View the exhibition: this can be in many formats, keep it simple so you can do it quickly with as least amount of stress possible:
A video of the exhibition – filmed on your phone is good enough! It is really great if you could have someone film you, and you discuss each work and the ideology behind it and the show – snippets of this can also be used on social media to send people to your website for a full viewing – and hopefully sign up
Installation photos (stills) of your show, and individual shows of each works, fully cited with names, dates and dimensions
3. Include a PDF link to your price list (which includes thumbnails of each work and fully cited documentation of the works in the show)
4. Include a PDF link to your Artist Statement or Exhibition Statement
5. Ensure you have a Contact link for people to email you with enquiries
Ensure that all of the above are opened in NEW PAGES, to keep people on your www.
When you post in social media, there is no extra work to do, post images every day for the duration of the show – post snippets of your Artist Statement, and make sure that you ALWAYS:
1. Mention the work(s) that is/are in the post and;
2. Mention to click on the link in the bio for more information-which goes back again to your Homepage
3. Ask the venue to post in their social media too, by simply forwarding your own post and IG stories (films), to make it easy for them to do – remember, we are ALL going through a tough time right now – you will NOT be alone in freaking out.
Contact the venue and ask them if you have a moment to discuss possibilities such as:
1. Keeping open the space / closing the space
2. What their commitment is to you in terms of sales (not sure if they are involved but if they are) and promoting the show to their contact list? If you sell through your own list, do you owe them commission?
3. Rent (can this be recovered through insurance? Can they give you a credit, or a show at a later date at the end of the year to make up for anomalies out of everybody’s control?
4. Any agreement must be in WRITING between the two of you – emailed is fine but it must be agreed to.
Veronique Gray painting – credit photo Luna Lucid
Your contact list
This is KEY. You must write to your own contact list and invite them to view your show at your www. Ask for their support. Tell them in a pro-active and positive way your desire to have the work seen. Make sure you tell that ALL WORKS ARE AVAILABLE FOR SALE. Try and think of every person that you know, that you can ask to pass it on to people they know. Don’t just write to family and friends, write to the local council, write to local art galleries, write to the local media. Put it out there that despite the odds, you are willing to be one of those artists who is going against the tide, and will still be standing when this blows over as quickly as it started. (China is already going back to work after all).
If you put these systems into place now, when you have a new show, you will have your website sorted and nurtured your list.And will quite possibly have a new date for a new show.
Sascha lives in Switzerland. She has a specialist agency servicing visual artists on professional practice including one-on-one and group mentoring.” Check out her website here.
