Best Practices 3/3: Building Relationships to Sell Your Art: Collectors, Galleries, & Artist Representatives

Perhaps you have just completed a new body of work. You have just updated your website. You have set up an email list with friends and family, or initiated which ever social media tools are best for your artwork. The next step is to make personal connections with people who will support your art. What are best practices for reaching out to a gallery? Can you directly contact curators? What are the pros can cons of working with an Artist Representative? What does an Artist Representative even do? How can you prepare for an amazing studio visit? Are there strategies artists can employ to turn followers or fans into collectors? How can artists develop relationships with art buyers? What do you do once someone does buy your art?

Both curators and art administrators, Alison Glenn, Gallery Director at Monique Meloche, and Jessica Cochran, Independent Curator and Collection Manager, bring diverse experiences working in a broad spectrum of situations to Spudnik Press. Through an open conversation with each other and attendees, Allison and Jessica will shed light on how artists can confidently build relationships with collectors, galleries, curators, and others who can help their work be noticed.

Allison M. Glenn is a curator, writer and arts professional. Her curatorial experience includes an appointment at the University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator (2013), project-based research and writing support for Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, and a 2010 Curatorial Fellowship at the Hyde Park Art Center. She has contributed to various publications including the Prospect.3: Notes for Now New Orleans Biennial exhibition catalog, Art21 and the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Fore exhibition catalog. She is currently the Director of Monique Meloche Gallery.

Named a “curator to watch” by Chicago Magazine in 2013, Jessica Cochran has curated exhibitions for the Contemporary Arts Council, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Around the Coyote Gallery, What it Is and the Wicker Park/Bucktown Chamber of Commerce.  She coordinated exhibitions and public programs for the Poetry Foundation, Art Chicago, NEXT and the Artist Project. She was recently the Curator of Exhibitions and Programs at the Center for Book and Paper Art, and is now a Curatorial and Collection Manager for a private contemporary art collection.

The Best Practices Series is presented as a partnership between Spudnik Press Cooperative and Chicago Printers Guild. For members of either organization, the cost is reduced to $12. If you are a member of Spudnik or the CPG, but did not receive a coupon code through email, please contact angee@spudnikpress.org.