Perhaps you have had the experience of walking into a gallery or museum, and after seeing work on the walls that is clearly bad or at least of poor quality, you say to yourself, “My work is so much better, why are they getting $50,000 for that? And how did they get in a gallery?”

 

The simplest answer is that a big part of what is going on is how the art is talked about, presented, and, more importantly, written about. 

 

Similar to the marketing of other products in our lives, art, at most levels, has a story of some kind to help understand it and sell it. 

 

Also, it is about being well organized when applying to grants or presenting your work.

 

After I taught this concept in Praxis Center about how mediocre art can get everywhere with the right presentation, one member, an artist, wrote this to me which explains it succinctly;

 

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“Good one, Brainard; 

 

Intrigued, and frustrated with this very phenomena, I discreetly asked the director of a major local art center how and why this happens [why sometimes mediocre art is exhibited]. 

 

Being fond of me, she took the time to show me. She opened a file drawer, pulled out several examples of applications for grants and residencies, etc, and, one by one, showed what selection committee members look for. In more than one case, she admitted “here’s some work everyone loved, but the proposal is so sloppy, inarticulate, and disorganized, while in this case, here, though the proposal is not so interesting, it is succinct, neat, complete, and was received on time, giving us the confidence this applicant can do what they propose, without supervision.” 

 

That, she said, was the difference.

 

Thanks for your service, and keep up the good work! 
—Andrew”
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This is a difficult truth for artists like us to accept. 

 

So here is a simple exercise I always asks my students to do to help them come to terms with this more intuitively:

 

Dress conservatively and (assuming there are no pandemic lockdowns in your area) go to a gallery that is the largest you know of and can easily get to and preferably the most intimidating.

 

Once you are at the gallery, look around at the artwork there, and find one you don’t really like.

 

(You can do this for any art work, including ones you admire, but this is more fun - and instructive - because you’re forcing professional gallerists to play the “marketing” game on hard mode by trying to present something you think is inferior in a good light.)  

 

Now ask to speak to someone about it.

 

Either a gallery employee or the owner will come out. They have no idea how much money you have, so with an air of confidence, ask the person approaching you to tell you more about the piece of art you are looking at. 

 

What you will hear and see is the selling of an artwork. And since you are perceived as a possible collector, since you are telling them nothing about yourself other than your question about the art, they will do their best to sell you the work. 

 

The advantage to this is twofold. On one hand, you get to be the person in power, the collector, and on the other, you can watch as the gallery owner tries to sell you art.

 

The insight that you can gain here from listening is in how they describe the art and what they convey to you as they try and sell the work. Pay careful attention to their words because this is how the gallery owner likes to talk about work. Then you will learn how to describe and talk about art in terms of its value to this particular gallery. Be sure to ask questions, such as, “Has the artist sold many of the works in this show?” or, “Why is the work valued at that price?”

 

Of course, good presentation is only one piece of the puzzle. There are many factors that increase the value of art and I go over all of them in my new book Making It in the Art World: 2021 (revised second edition).

 

Get your copy now - bonus chapters and more are available for anyone who buys one before June 1st. Find out about the preorder bonuses at on this page.

 

Best,
Brainard