Bowland's response to the NPG

Apparently the National Portrait Gallery has officially finally contacted Margaret Bowland on the saga of her stolen painting. Bowland's response to the NPG encapsulates the whole saga:

Mr. Earhart:

After reading the documents you faxed to my husband I have to admit that I understand NPG's legal position.

There are, however a few things I need to say on my behalf.

All the communication to me from the NPG about shipping the painting at the close of the show was sent to an AOL email account that I have not used for over a year. This despite my having communicated several times with various members of the NPG staff using my new, gmail address. It is also hard to understand why if I did not respond to an email someone did not bother to telephone me. My telephone number is on the Loan Agreement, and I have an answering machine.

As you mention in your letter to my husband, I had a telephone call with a member of the NPG staff after the credit line mentioning the Klaudia Marr Gallery had been agreed on. In this telephone call I told the NPG staffer that I had broken my relationship to the Marr Gallery because they had failed to pay me for work of mine they had displayed and sold to collectors, I stated clearly that I was the sole owner of the Portrait of Kenyetta and Brianna, and that the picture should be returned to me. When I saw that the credit line on the painting at the exhibit and in the catalogue ommitted any mention of the Klaudia Marr Gallery I assumed that the telephone call had been sufficient notice to return the painting to me, the acknowledged owner.

You say you first became aware of this situation on September 23, 2010. I was not sent a copy of the Loan Agreement explaining NPG's position until yesterday, October 6. Had I gotten that information sooner, my reaction to the whole mess would have been a little different.

My reaction would also have been different had someone from the NPG called me on the telephone at any time between September 23 and now. I asked, in fact begged, via emails, for someone from the NPG to telephone me and explain what had happened. No one called, and the emails I did get just put me off and referred to a loan agreement, which I only got yesterday.

I understand now that you are protected by legal documents. The fact remains, however, that a collector in Santa Fe now has possession of the painting, Klaudia Marr has received a substantial amount of money for it, and I -- the rightful owner and creator of the painting -- have nothing to show for my efforts.

The painting was an important part of the portrait competition exhibition and has become associated with the NPG. It was awarded a commendation as one of the finalists and was a favorite among viewers. It won the People's Choice Award by
popular vote. My talk in front of the painting at the NPG during the exhibition was recorded and has been circulated on Youtube.

I would have thought that the NPG would have helped me get the painting back. Instead, you have spent all your energy fending me off and protecting
yourself.

Once again I ask the question: Since the NPG was the unwilling participant in an alleged scam to defraud the artist, why are they not assisting the victims (both the NPG and the artist) in dealing with Law Enforcement?

A federally funded museum has been allegedly conned by an art dealer into assisting in the alleged theft of a work of art which had been on exhibit at the museum and all they (the NPG) is doing is apparently circling the wagons to remove themselves from the issue?

I ask the question once again and hope the NPG sends me an answer: Why are they not picking up the phone and calling the FBI's Art Theft Unit?

Update: Kriston Capps has dug some new info on this subject. Read the comments section to read it.

Update 2:Margaret Bowland has sent in a response to Kriston Capp's (11:06 am in the comments section). However, because it exceeds the max number of characters allowed in the comments form, it is being posted here:

Well, Lenny, yes there was a check made out to me for Murakami wedding. Three years ago. The check was for 2,000 dollars against a bill for 21000 dollars that I was due. So far I agree with Mr. Capps.

I told him the rest of this story, but it seemed not to have mattered to him, but here it is.

At the time Marr sent me this paltry check, three years ago, other artists in the gallery were alerting me to the fact that her gallery was falling apart, people were not getting paid. In the gallery world, the artist assumes shipping payments to a gallery and the gallery must pay to have unsold work returned. This is very expensive, as you can well imagine, to ship large works from NY to Santa Fe. MARR had the consignment to sell my work for the duration of a one month long group show. Listening to the people around me I called her and requested that my work be returned to me. She refused.

So at the urging of friends I sent a shipper in at my own expense, 1800 dollars to retrieve my work. At this point, I stupidly sighed a sigh of relief because the Murakami painting was (I thought) safely in the hands of the NPG.

The shippers had a list of the works they were to retrieve for me. On the day they arrived there was a painting missing. I asked to speak to Klaudia on the phone. In a flustered voice, she said, "Oh yes, didn't I tell you, the "Bride Painting" sold to a South African woman. It has already been shipped out of the country."

Of course, I was furious, but I was afraid as well. I just wanted to get away from this woman. My half of the painting, pastel "the Bride" that she had sold was to have been 3500 dollars. I said to her on the phone, "Klaudia, I have no way of trusting you anymore. I am considering the last 2000 dollars I have just received from you to be the end of our relationship. I am going to count it toward the Bride Pastel for which you still owe me 1500. This is the last of our relationship."

And I repeated to her, that the 2000 dollars would go toward the "Bride picture" and "the Murakami was free and clear." I also said that she was free to send me full payment for any of the works and then there would be new grounds for discussion. She said nothing to this, accepted it. Needless to say I never talked to her again until she called me two weeks ago hysterical and teary.

And I have never received another dollar from this woman. Right now if you add the shipping bill she was supposed to pay me, the rest of "The Bride Pastel" and "The Portrait of Kenyetta and Bryanna" that she stole, the bill comes to 24,300 dollars. That is a huge amount of money to me.

Sadly, I felt this was the worst damage she could do me and walked away believing the Murakami painting was mine to sell. If indeed this is or was a legitimate sale why in two years has Ms. Marr made no attempt to send me the balance she owes me of 19 thousand dollars?

I had thought that I would not be bothered by this woman for the rest of my life. I had been told that she had disbanded her gallery and to escape hundreds of creditors she had disappeared and I felt, good riddance.

All of this was explained at length to Ms. LaPorta (or LaRosa?) Ms. De Rosa from the NPG in the telephone conversations I had with her before the show ever opened.

She then went on to list my name as the owner of the painting. And my name only.

So what have I done wrong here? I will admit that oddly and tragically my belief that I was on a friendly basis with the staff at the NPG worked against me terribly.

If I had not been in constant contact with these folks by email and by phone, then perhaps I would have contacted the museum when the show was winding down to make sure my paper work was in order. It just never occurred to me for a moment. They had sent me many things by mail, talked to me by phone and the email. I had no idea that the people in registrar were unaware of what was known by the people at the head of their organization and that when confronted with what looked odd, an email address that had not been used in over two years, that the registrar wouldn't have picked her head up, made a phone call, asked a question.

This whole thing was going on while I was on vacation in Holland. Just two weeks that shall prove to be the costliest two weeks of my life. When I arrived home there were many messages on my telephone but none from the NPG. Certainly I would have called immediately.

Mr. Capps concludes that the NPG did nothing illegal. It does appear that while I thought they were trying to retrieve my painting they were doing just that, making sure there legal affairs were in order so that the mighty organization could protect itself from a penniless painter. It seems they did a very good job.

But I shall ask this of you Mr. Capps? Is this right? What have I done to deserve being left without a painting or the money to pay for it? I trusted a major government agency to recognize the ownership of my work and to return it to me. They had my address every single moment. What was so hard about sending it home? And if they could not reach me for two weeks, where was the fire? The place is vast.

Rather than just send my painting to an address of which I HAD NEVER approved, did not even know, couldn't you have waited until you could have talked to me, or asked someone else in your organization if they had any current information about how to reach me? I would have proceeded that way to return a hat.

All the legal work may be in order, but a thief is alive and well and doing business with dupes in NM , the NPG glides on, the huge ship of state that it is, and the artist that was used by this ship of state to mount a popular show is left drowning in its wake. If that is justice I have no comprehension of the word.

margaret bowland

ABMB Report: Final Day

I'm up around 6AM.

Why?
 
Because if you get down to Wynwood early on Sunday, you can get a great parking spot a few feet off the loading docks and it makes a world of difference when 6PM arrives and the fair ends and the dance of trucks and vans start to reload for the trips back home.

Today it was packed.

Humanity crowded the aisles, but this was a "strolling" crowd... not really interested in art; while the aisles where crowded, the gallery booths were empty! The people chatted, interacted with each other, push their strollers and had a nice stroll with little peripheral interest in art.

No matter: We've had a monster art fair - the two previous days set new records and at the end - the bottom line is that lots of new works of art by several artists (most of them from the DMV) have found new homes all over the planet.

At six  the fair ends... two minor sales all day. And at the end, a quick cursory look at the sales book indicates that this has been the best art fair that we've done in almost 10 years of doing art fairs! And the work is going all over the place, not just Miami/Florida area, but Germany, UK, Puerto Rico, Chicago, LA, NYC, Argentina, and one even coming back to DC!

By 7:30PM we're packed and the gallery van is ready to go: new record from scrambling out of there!

Tomorrow, wake up call is around 4:30AM in order to catch the flight back to Reagan National while Audrey drives the gallery van back to the DMV.

Another ABMB week down the hatch.

Aqua Day Two

Good day at Aqua Art Fair yesterday and decent crowds all day long... also a steady stream of DMV artists stopping by to say hello.

 

Super talented and hard working gallery intern Audrey Wilson (one of the bennies of being our gallery intern is that you get to bring artwork to the fairs) sold her biggest glass piece - Yay! It went to a New York art collector.

 

Also sold a Dulce Pinzon photo - the very last proof piece of her fabulous iconic image from her Superheros series, my largest video piece (remember "Artist Worshiping at the Altar of Modern Art"?), a Cory Oberndorfer donut painting and several of my regular drawings.

 

It's interesting to me that three of my personal sales have gone to other gallery owners; more on that later.

As I've discussed before, there are other perks of doing an art fair - what I call the "wake effect" -- on opening night I connected a major university's museum director with the owner of the vintage Korda photographs of the psychopath Che Guevara - they will be exhibited at the museum in the near future and also become part of a new history course on the Argentinean adventurer.

Also met a NYC art center director who connected me with an unlikely art collector couple (unlikely in the sense that they are known to collect Asian art), who are refocusing their attention on collecting Cuban art and plan to open a museum space in the Big Apple focused on Cuban art; more on that later.

A well-known art collector who owns my work (and who is on the "Top 100 Art Collectors in the World" list, and who bought another one of my pieces on VIP night) also connected me with a young guy who is building a new boutique hotel in the Miami area. Apparently the art collector is the money behind the scheme, as the hotel development young guy was directed to work with me to ensure that the project had real artwork instead of "hotel art"; we traded business cards and chatted about "hotelism" and "real art for hotels."

Saturday at Context Art Miami

Saturday was so far the best day at Context Art Miami. In fact, in the eight years that I have been doing art fairs, this was the best one day ever.

The day started early, as we shifted home base from the beach hotel in Hollywood Beach to Little Havana, in order to be closer to Wynwood for the crucial last two days of the fair.

After dropping the luggage and getting two "colados" to kick start the sleepy systems, and on the way to the fair, a phone call resulted in the sale of six of Dulce Pinzon's amazing work; that's the way to start the day.

The crowds at Context were huge; it was actually hard to navigate the halls!

We sold work by Simon Monk, multiple pieces by Elissa Farrow-Savos, and several of my drawings, including a major video drawing.

It was frenetic selling, with multiple trips to the gallery van to replenish the walls. We also noticed that the dealers around us seemed to be selling well. It is all a question of numbers: Art Miami succeeded in bringing large crowds to the fairs, and this is in direct proportion to the probability of a sale.

There were also multiple "wake" events as I call them. They are the potential after-effects of doing an art fair... For example, there are at least two galleries interested in Elissa's work, and one in Audrey Wilson's work and a local Miami gallery in my work.

Sunday is the last day; apparently there are more street protests scheduled, so it may get interesting.

Mera Rubell Studio Visit

Background: As announced here:

"the Rubell Family Collection is one of the leading collections of contemporary art in the world. Started in 1964, soon after Don and Mera Rubell were married, the Rubell Family Collection operates as a non-profit organization based in Miami where it presents rotating, curated exhibitions and hosts a variety of educational and community outreach programs.

Mera Rubell will be one of eight esteemed curators selecting works for Cream, the WPA 2010 Art Auction Exhibition. Building upon the popular Experimental Video Series at the Rubells’ Capitol Skyline Hotel, Rubell has determined to see the work of as many DC-area artists as possible and select up to twelve to be included in the WPA exhibition and auction. Her visits to DC are typically 36 hours long, and she has devoted her next trip to this project.

For 36 Studios – Part 1, Mera Rubell and a team of curators and writers will conduct 36 studio visits over the course of 36 straight hours. Each studio visit will last approximately 15-20 minutes and will take place starting at 5:00am on Saturday, December 12 and continuing until 5:00pm on Sunday, December 13."

Got it?

So as all of you should have done, I threw my name in the hat for this spectacular opportunity to show my artwork to one of the world's leading art collectors, and the same person (me) who once missed a 160 million dollar lottery grand prize by one number, hit it this time and I, along with 35 other lucky DC area artists, was selected to be visited by "Mera Rubell and a team of curators and writers."

To say that I was ecstatic is the understatement of the year. I was dumbfounded and left a little speechless for the second time this month. An opportunity like this doesn't happen very often, if ever.

When I returned to Earth, to my horror I realized that... ahhh... I had no work to show Rubell.

All of my work is still in Miami, safely stored awaiting for it to be displayed again at the coming Miami International Art Fair at the Miami Beach Convention Center from 5-10 January 2010.

Best known art collector in the world is coming to my studio and I have zip to show her.

Effing Great...

The Grand Admiral of the Soviet Fleet, Sergei Gorshkov once stated that the "reason that the American Navy is so good in time of war is because war is chaos and the US Navy practices chaos everyday."

Thus, as a former Naval officer I have been well trained in dealing with chaos and once my heart slowed down I sat down to consider my options.

Should I put together a binder full of available work in Miami and pass it to Ms. Rubell in the hope that she would agree to check them out once she returned to Miami?

Should I sit her in front of a large flat screen TV and flash her digital images of my available work?

Or should I lock myself in the studio and create as many new art pieces as possible before her visit on Sunday afternoon?

Usually the hardest and most difficult path to an answer is the solution, and I decided to lock myself in the studio and create new art.

As a new father, this is not easy, and I discussed it with my wife. With her support, I chose the last option.

I spent the rest of Thursday doing and finishing up all of my chores, many of which had piled up while I was in Florida the previous week. I went to bed around midnight on Thursday night, with my head buzzing with ideas.

By 3:30AM on Friday, I was up, essentially unable to sleep and ready to create some artwork. This being the digital age, before I entered the studio I logged onto Facebook and began Facebooking the events about to take place.

Nine hours later, after a dozen sketches and several discarded starts, I had finished my first new drawing, a large portrait of Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Lynch, known to the world as "Che" and perhaps the most iconic figure in modern history.


"Asere, Si o No?" 19"x48" Charcoal on Paper
When I finished I had something special. The appropriated image of Che from a photograph by a Commie photographer somewhere (ironic that Communists always nationalize and appropriate private stuff, so I have no issues appropriating their imagery) is to the left in a very Christ-like pose. Behind him, a slogan or graffiti on the imperfect wall asks the question in Cuban slang: "Asere, Si o No?" which means "Friend, Yes or No? in Cuban street dialect and is meaningless to all other Spanish speaking peoples. The capital letters answer the question by spelling out ASESINO or assassin. This is the second version of this ASESINO concept.

It is now well into Friday. More Facebooking and by now friends and family are encouraging me. Art critic Kevin Mellema advices me that "Sleep is for the weak. 72 artist hours is like a week and a half of work for 9 to 5'ers.... Of course you do want to be awake and coherent when they show up on Sunday..."

The next time that I sit down to draw I hit a groove and deliver five new drawings in about four hours. I'm employing a lot of charcoal dust to cover large areas and create a minimalist drawing concept. "Superman flying naked and close to the ground in order to avoid NORAD radar" is such a drawing. We barely see the naked superhero, but we do see his elongated shadow on the road below. The lane dividers are just erased charcoal, now showing the not so pure white Arches paper underneath. I toy with the idea of rubbing more charcoal dust onto the drawing to create the impression of the car oil stains one always sees in the middle of the lanes. I abandon the idea; it is a pure and clean highway under the Man of Steel.


"Superman flying naked and close to the ground in order to avoid NORAD radar"" Charcoal on Paper. 20x24 inches.
"True Believer" and "Woman who thinks that the tattoo that she just got on her back reads 'Bring Bush Back'" come out next. Both are very quick drawings and the first one is a highly worked drawing with an almost fanatical message. I'm not satisfied with the charcoal aspect of the dripping blood from the newly finished tattoo and so I bring out colored pencils and apply a subtle sense of color to the piece. This is rare for me.

Now there's red blood dripping down her arm. The second piece is the opposite: a rough almost unfinished drawing with a harsh, funny message. It is inspired by a cartoon I saw once which showed a burly sailor's back. A tattoo on his back reads: "Don't tell this guy what this tattoo says, he thinks he has a battleship."


"True Believer" 22 x 14 inches. Charcoal and Colored Pencils on Paper.


"Woman who thinks that the tattoo that she just got reads 'Bring Bush Back'" Charcoal and Conte on Paper. 14"x10"
I had set aside a nice vertical piece of dark paper and "Fallen Angel" materializes on it as I work furiously. It is the most minimalist of the pieces and it is finished in less that 15 minutes from beginning to end.


"Fallen Angel." Charcoal on Paper. 21 x 11 inches.
On the radio, the pundits are discussing Obama's speech at Oslo accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. I take a break and do some more Facebooking and I come across Mary Coble's profile picture on Facebook and it triggers an idea in my head. Coble and Nobel seem to align and "Age of Obama - Nobel Peace Prize" is created. This is the second "Age of Obama" drawing that I've done. In the first, done while Obama was a candidate, the figure is canvas to a history of the candidate in the early days of the election. It is now in a private collection in Ireland.

In this second "Age of Obama" drawing, the figure is host to selected portions of the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.


"Age of Obama - Nobel Peace Prize" Charcoal on Paper. 16x12 inches.
I want to have some coherence to the work that I want to show Rubell, and many of these pieces have a seminal beginning in my historical interest in the Picts. And so out comes a Pictish drawing.


"Pictish Woman" Charcoal on Paper. 14 x 9 inches.
The Pictish drawing is the one that worries me the most. It is almost fantasy in nature. Will Rubell understand my historical interest in the subject and how it is the seed to the more contemporary work?

I take a break as I am tapped out and on Saturday afternoon we all visit some open studios and drop by the Washington Glass School, Red Dirt and Flux Studios. Rubell has already been to her designated visits there and excited artists tell me about her and her entourage. I sense some disappointment, some hope and certainly a lot of excitement.

I begin to gather another aspect of the impact that this influential person's tiring and superhuman effort (36 studios in 36 hours) is causing on the DC art scene. Even the Washington Post, well-known amongst DC area artists for its apathy and indifference towards the local visual art scene has sent the Post's freelance art critic along, and she has overcome her ennui about the DC artists and galleries that she is tasked with covering and is following Rubell to some of the studio visits, but soon drops out.

I'm angsty about the whole thing and can't wait to get back to my studio and create some more work. I want to make sure that I make an impact.

On the drive home I pass by at least three Vietnamese restaurants and wonder why all the Pho places have a number after it (such as PHO 95, PHO 301, etc.).

My head has been filled by my visit to the studios with a need to be "shocking" in order to stand out. I waste precious hours struggling with a shocking idea. I visualize a man crawling away into the horizon perspective. We see his body clearly from the back, his buttocks clear and white, and his penis dangling between his legs as he crawls away. A tattoo with an arrow points to his anus and letters instruct "Insert Penis Here." Another tattoo on his penis states "Suck This." His butt cheeks sport tattoos that say: "Spank Here."

The tattoo on his back says "Pat here" and the tattoo on his feet soles says "Tickle here."

The title would have been "Man with Directions" but it never came about. It just wasn't me. I'm no Chris Offili, taking a schlocky short cut to shock in order to gather attention. I feel guilty enough as it is about the drawing of the woman with the Obama tattoo on her back.

Instead another Che Guevara drawing begins to emerge. Much smaller, almost the opposite of the first piece. For almost a whole day the drawing looks like this:

A long-haired Che is to the left of the drawing (where else), with a vast empty space to his right. Long hair years before the Beatles and hippies, aloof and alone as an adventurer in a foreign land so much different than his native Argentina.

That night I can't sleep much between fighting a nagging cough acquired while in Miami and racing ideas about how to finish the drawing.

On Sunday I wake up, calm and ready for the visit. And the last drawing crystallizes suddenly.


Finalmente Denunciamos a el que traiciono al Che (Finally we denounce he who betrayed Che). 4 x 24 inches. Charcoal on paper
The Spanish words announce that "finally we denounce who betrayed Che." The capital letters answer the statement: FIDEL. I now have two of these... the circle is complete and I am ready for Rubell. It is 9:00AM on Sunday and I get a phone call from the WPA's Lisa Gold.

Is it OK if they come around noon instead of the originally scheduled time of 2PM? She asks. I will be either the last studio visited or the penultimate one.

I tell them that I am ready.

Next: What happened during the visit.

All shook up

Yes, the 3.6 earthquake did wake me up. Little everything else, I am sure that it is Busch's fault.

Art Vandals

The Vandals were a Germanic tribe which (towards the end of the Roman Empire) swept down from Germany and left a path of destruction in their wake (thus the word "vandalism") as they marched through Europe in search of food and warm lands. Eventually, together with another German bunch of hungry barbarians known as the Visigoths, they settled in Spain by the millions and became a significant chunk of the modern Spaniard and French DNA. The Vandals settled mostly in the South, and gave their name to the region today called Andalusia in Spain (from "Vandalus").

Recently, in Lund, a small university town in southern Sweden art vandals attacked "The History of Sex," an exhibition of photographs by the New York artist Andres Serrano. Read Carol Vogel's report here and Bailey's unique take here.

For the last several years, the Swedish artist Felix Gmelin has been interested in artworks that have literally been destroyed in museums, galleries, or other public spaces. In the art project Art Vandals, Felix Gmelin reinterprets twelve works that have been subjected to vandalism. Check it out here.

A letter from the new WPA Director

In the past 100 days, I have met with 100 DC-area artists. Not individually, but in groups. We've met in studio buildings, in bars, here at WPA's new gallery. I asked them lots of questions. I listened and took notes. It was a real wake-up call.

 

One of the things I heard time and again was that artists are fleeing our city. There are two principal reasons for this. First, DC has gotten too expensive, so they are moving to the Virginia and Maryland suburbs. Or they are migrating to Baltimore or Los Angeles. The point is, while the population of DC grows, its artist population shrinks.

 

The second reason artists are leaving is because there just aren't many opportunities left for them here. The Corcoran and a number of  important galleries have closed. The (e)merge art fair is on hiatus. Where are artists to exhibit? How can they sell?

 

These conversations underscored for me WPA's great responsibility to this community. It isn't enough for us to simply present exhibitions and events. We need to find ways to retain the existing talent so vividly in evidence in the Auction Gala Exhibition.

 

"But how?" you ask.

 

Well, one immediate way is to attend our Auction Gala on April 9  and buy some art. Proceeds from that event are split 50-50 between the artists and WPA. You can buy tickets here.

 

Beyond that, this is a much longer conversation that I look forward to having with you over the coming year. Stay tuned for more on this subject. In the meantime, let's celebrate and support the artists still in our midsts. I will see you at the Gala.

 

Yours,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Peter Nesbett, Executive Director

This is how you get into an art fair

I first published this over a decade ago, in two parts, and it has been completely ignored by all the art and artists' organizations to which it was aimed... here's the gist of it and I've refreshed it a little, updated it, and combined the two parts:

Let us start...

Over the last two decades, I've written many times before about art fairs and Art Basel Miami Beach week in the Greater Miami area - this is the world's "big dance" when it comes to the visual arts; this is the big party and everyone is invited. However, it is a matter of how to get into a reputable art fair that's the issue to many artists and galleries.

Art fairs are very expensive. As I've noted before, many galleries risk everything to come to Miami or New York, or London to do an art fair, and I suspect that many are financially destroyed at the end of the week. And yet, many do well and return year after year.

Between my years with the Fraser Gallery and now with AAAP, we've been returning to Miami for two decades now. Other DMV and regional galleries that keep coming back are my good buds at Connersmith, sometimes also Hamiltonian. They consistently take the financial risk and venture to Miami (and in some cases all over the US and Europe). Some other participants have been Morton Fine Arts, Zenith, and Adah Rose.

Others have tried a year or two, crashed and burned and never return to the party.

Is there a formula to this? What the the magic that makes this work for some and not for others?

I know of at least two galleries in the Mid Atlantic who have "financial backers" who absorb most or some of the financial risk involved in doing an art fair. Since these sort of galleries are very limited (who wouldn't love to have a financial backer?), they are the "outliers" in the formula for clicking the right button in the art fair game.

Some non-profits have the economic stability to play consistently in the art fair game; and to make it easier for them, many art fairs have special, lower pricing for non-profits. So they are also a special case, I think, because in most cases, the financial risk is absorbed by the state of their income-gathering to stay afloat as a non-profit.

It is a mystery to me why not more DMV area non-profits go to the art fairs. Hamiltonian is a notable exception, as has been Honfleur Gallery in Anacostia.

And the WPA did use to participate in the DC-based and fabled (e)merge art fair... and it did really well!

But I would submit that there are several area non-profits that could, and should participate in Miami and New York art fairs as part of their business model; if a local non-profit can afford to pay $70-$80,000 a year to its executive director (and several DMV non-profits are in that range), then it can certainly afford to budget $12-18K to participate in an art fair outside of the DMV. 

I think this as an outsider - completely ignorant to the money shell game that running a non profit must be, and I tip my hat to them.

I'm not saying that all visual arts non-profits should do this - I am sure that the mission of some of them are strictly focused on "local" only, rather than expanding their artistic presentations outside the capital region.

But that still leaves several key ones that (if I was the DMV art dictator) should be in NYC and Miami during art fair times.

This also applies to some of our large membership-based visual arts organizations and cooperative galleries, such as The Art League.

I'm a big fan of The Art League, and when I lived close to Alexandria I was a member for many years, and I have been honored multiple times by being selected as a juror for them.

And thus I am going to use them as an example, but this example applies to the multiple "other" art leagues, groups, clubs, cooperatives, etc. that exist around our region and which are important and significant components of our cultural tapestry. I could just as easily have picked the Rockville Art League, or the League of Reston Artists, or Tephra ICA, Waverly, WPA, Touchstone, Fairfax Art League, CHAW, etc.

The money part is always an issue, but when the money risk can be divided into several (rather than one) entities, then the overall financial risk is reduced, because it is spread, rather than concentrated into one (the independent commercial gallery) bank account.

So let's proceed with this possible example using The Art League.

They have several thousand members and run a very successful and important program in their space inside the Torpedo Factory and assorted classrooms all over the area. So successful in fact, that changing that model (or expanding it...) must seem anathema to their leaders.

So the issue is, how does The Art League (again, you can fill in any of multiple DMV area membership-based art organizations) pick or select the 3-5 artists to take to an art fair?

The "good" art fairs are nearly always tightly juried. There are many art fairs where one just pays and anyone and everyone can go - those usually suck as some DMV galleries and many DMV solo artists will unfortunately discover when they suddenly decide to jump into the art fair arena of without research.

And thus for Miami/NYC fairs I am thinking (in no particular order) about Art Miami, Context, Aqua, Pulse, NADA, Untitled, Volta, Affordable Art Fair(s), Scope, Miami Project, Frieze... some of these are very, very hard to get in, but they're listed nonetheless, because there is a "food chain" of art fairs, and the bottom-feeders usually spell disaster for the participants.

And thus The Art League would need to establish a process to pre-jury its membership to 3-5 artists and apply with those artists to an art fair. I would start with The Affordable Art Fair in New York. They are close by and they are a "proven" fair which has been in operations over 25 years. I have done it many times and consistently recommend it to any gallery that asks me about art fairs in general.

And thus The Art League would need to canvas their membership and find out who is interested in being juried for possible selection for further jurying into an art fair. I would make this process independent from the Art League itself - just like they do for their monthly juried shows, and have interested artists bring their work in to be juried by an independent juror.

That juror has to be a very special juror - in fact 98% of your standard-issue visual art jurors (art professors, art critics, art writers, art center directors, artists, etc.) would guarantee a disaster to this process. In the DMV the jury pool for this process is very limited and its members are only those gallerists who have participated in multiple art fairs. In fact I can't think of anyone better to jury this part than me! Or Leigh Conner or Adah Rose...

This is a critical point, so I'm going to repeat it: The DMV the jury pool for this process is very limited and its members are only those gallerists who have successfully participated in multiple art fairs. In fact I can't think of anyone better to jury this part than me!

Let me repeat another key point: The Art League would need to canvas their membership and find out who's interested in being juried for possible selection for further jurying into an art fair.

Everything that I'm going to discuss below has to be clearly explained in the prospectus for this process, so that each applying artist knows exactly what this would involve.

I suspect that a large number of artists would find this attractive, and perhaps a small jurying fee ($10?) could be applied to subsidize the art fair costs (I would budget anywhere from $12-20K, depending on booth size).

Whatever you do, DO NOT use an art fair director as a juror! They are usually interested in what would make the fair look good (usually from an unsellable trendy perspective) , rather than understand the delicate balance of good art, finances, and peripheral issues that come to play into this process.

The juror would pick 3-5 artists and 2-3 alternates. This is because some art fair processes do have the option to accept an application while at the same time rejecting some of the artists in that application.

So now we have a group of artists, culled from applying Art League members, ready and willing to participate in an art fair.

The actual application process is easy, so I'm not getting into that - be aware that deadlines are usually months before the actual fairs.

If accepted, the next step is transporting the artwork to the art fair, and then returning the unsold artwork back to the owners. For this, the Art League has various options.

One option would be to hire a transport company. There are dozens and dozens of specialized carriers that do this and they pick up and transport the art to your booth at the fair, and at the end pick it up from your booth and transport it back. This is the easiest and the most expensive. From here to NYC and back I would budget $1200-$2000 depending on volume. Packaging also becomes an issue here.

Another option is to rent a truck or van and schlep the work to and from the fair yourself. This is what I usually do for New York and Miami.

A third option is to have each artist (or teamed artists) bring their own work in their own cars, vans, etc.

In this example, I would offer each accepted artist the choice to come to the fair, and help hang and help to sell their own work. This should be an option, not a requirement, as some artists would rather spend a week in Baghdad than a long weekend in an art fair dealing with art collectors; but some artists do like doing that. In any event, just "being" and seeing what goes on at an art fair is a spectacular learning opportunity for anyone involved in the visual arts.

The Art League has the luxury of having a very skilled "front desk" team that is already well-versed in the arcane art of selling artwork - so they could and should also come to the fair to handle questions and sales, etc. DO NOT send your executive director or curator to handle sales - that would be a disaster!

We're getting dangerously close to having a lot of people crowding the booth, so let's please keep the number of people hanging around the booth at all times to less than three; the artists can "float" in and out.

There is strength in numbers in many other aspects: transporting artwork, hanging it, packing it, splitting costs of hotel rooms, etc.

Before you book a hotel room anywhere in the major US cities (especially NYC) always check www.bedbugregistry.com. Again, I kid thee not. Pick a hotel that is walking distance from the fair or public transportation to the fair.

The elephant in the room here is cost(s), but again there is strength in numbers.

Art fairs often offer discounted prices to non-profits; Honfleur Gallery in Anacostia (in the past) has participated in The Affordable Art Fair in NYC and takes advantage of this special pricing. WPA participated (and had great success) at (e)merge and Hamiltonian is often somewhere in Miami.

Art fair prices are different depending on the fair. You can see the booth prices for the next Affordable Art Fair New York here. 

I'm my head I have this concept of having the selected Art League artists have a "financial stake" in this process by having them contribute some funds towards the art fair fees. Nothing works like putting your money where your mouth is. But then again, as a large organization, perhaps a more artist-friendly model would be for the Art League to cover all the art fair costs from a combination of jury entry fees and their own budget.

Of course, the Art League would also keep their usual commission on sales, so this also has a money-making angle for them.

What are the art fair costs? There are direct costs and associated costs.

Direct costs are:
(a) Cost of the basic booth
(b) Cost of additional booth stuff (extra walls, extra lights, storage)
(c) Some fairs have a "shared" advertising cost (AAFNYC doesn't)

Associated Costs are:
(a) Cost of required insurance (Art League would be able to use their current insurer or buy insurance directly from the art fair)
(b) Cost of transportation of the art. If using own vehicle, then also cost of parking it
(c) Cost of Art League staff at the fair (bus to NYC and shared hotel room and per diem for food)
(d) Cost of the juror to select the artists

Funding sources for all these costs are:
(a) Art League budget
(b) Nominal jurying fee for applying artists
(c) Commission on sales at the fair (this, of course, is putting the cart ahead of the horse)

Commercial galleries take huge chances at art fairs. My very first art fair all around cost was about $8,000 almost two decade ago - all that was charged on the gallery's credit card and we held our breath while at the fair. We sold about $30,000 worth of art, and thus after commissions to the artists we cleared $15,000 and paid off the credit card and then had $6,000 to put towards the next art fair fee.

I can count on one hand the number of times that we sold that much in any gallery art show in the DMV; and I've had a gallery here of one sort or another since 1996.

What's in it for the artists?

Usually a lot more than for the gallery. I will repeat this: more often than not, an artist reaps more good things out of an art fair than the gallery does.

These things include:

(a) Exposure to more art collectors, curators, press, etc. in a few days than in years of exhibiting art around the DMV. You will see more people in 4-5 days than in five hundred years at a gallery in the DMV. Statistically (and yes I do have an undergraduate Math degree in Numerical Analysis in addition to my Art degree), the sheer number translates into sales. Since my first art fair in 2006, I have sold over 500 works of my art.

(b) Exposure to other galleries who may be interested in your work. I have multiple examples of this - Just ask DMV area artist Judith Peck what has happened to her career once she started showing at art fairs.... or read the example of my dear friend Sam Gilliam!

(c) A significantly higher chance of getting critical press.

(d) A significantly higher chance of getting your work noticed by both freelance and museum curators and art advisors, etc. Since 2006 I've had over twenty commissions via art advisors and several pieces acquired by multiple museums. The chance of getting your work noticed by a DMV museum curator is probably higher than the chance of winning the lottery. Most DMV area museum curators (AU's Jack Rasmussen being the brilliant exception) would rather take a cab to Dulles to fly to Miami to see emerging artists' works at fairs than taking a cab to see a gallery show in Georgetown.

(e) Being part of the art fair "wake effect" --- Read about that here.

(f) A much better chance to getting invited to participate in other shows such as university shows, themed-shows, group shows, etc. Ask Virginia artist Sheila Giolitti about that.

I hope that I've made my point, and I hope that some visual art groups and organizations are reading this.

WPA, Tephra ICA, Blackrock Center for the Arts, Touchstone, Art League, Washington Project for the Arts, Maryland Art Place, Multiple Exposures, Gallery 10, Washington Sculptors Group, VizArts, Artomatic, Waverly Street Gallery, DC Arts Center, DCCAH, Target Gallery, Torpedo Factory, Montgomery Art Association, Workhouse Arts Center, Art Gallery of Potomac, Rockville Art League, The Artists' Undertaking, Glen Echo... I'm looking at you.

UPDATE: Cristina Salmastrelli, the energetic Regional Managing Director for Ramsay Fairs, pipes in with some terrific comments:

My comments, in no particular order:

I love that artists should not be required to come to an art fair if they do not want to. There are some artists that cannot stomach the fast pace of a fair or the harsh realities that comes with it. This is why artist representatives are so important, in my opinion. Visitors and potential art buyers can be quite harsh and sometimes artist cannot hear negative feedback. I never want an artist to hear negative feedback unless it’s filtered through their representation or a proper lense. In my opinion and in the most idyllic sense, the entire gallery system is there to protect the artist and their creativity from external messages. I have seen artist wilt when representing their own work and that makes me really upset, so I love the fact that the artist onsite requirement theory can be eliminated.

The formula for art fair success is an ever changing one. It more and more reminds me of early motherhood or Instagram’s algorithms every day. Once you feel like you got your system down pat, CURVEBALL STRAIGHT AHEAD! And the only way to properly prepare for this is to come in feeling strong and excited to talk to people at every opportunity. Every edition needs to be your first and there can be no assumptions that you will be as successful as your last. And with that theory, the fair experience never ends on the last day and that constant follow up and dedication to build relations with new clients, old clients and potential ones will pay off down the line.

It never hurts to take time to try and understand the different motivations when it comes to purchasing art. From there, take time to practice how to close deals based on the variety of reasons why someone buys an artwork. In the end, this exchange is about emotions and this purchase is emotive, so understanding people really helps to make your experience a successful one.