Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter
Insight and inspiration for your artistic career.

Dear Artist,

This morning Kirk Wassell of Irvine, California wrote: "Recently, I accepted a three-month placement in a Restaurant-Gallery called Bistango. I soon realized that the lighting was inadequate. My real dilemma came when I was told my prices would be more than doubled. For example, my price was $650, their price was $1500. I was astonished. Is this typical, or even appropriate? What are my rights in negotiating what my work will sell for? As I'm new at the game, am I at the mercy of the system? Could you give me a general pricing scheme?"

Thanks, Kirk. Whether your work is in the National Gallery or in Heidi Fleiss's House of Ill Repute, your prices to the general public need to be the same. This means that only you control the final price. The percentage that various venues take is negotiated from your standard pricing. If you don't take control no one else will, and some brigands will run over you. Wandering prices are most unfair to your collectors and spoil the steady upward progression an artist can enjoy during a lifetime of creativity. If you want to see a general pricing scheme that happens to be based on size, you can look at mine at http://www.robertgenn.com/dealers.php Over the years, a few dealers who have wandered from my standard pricing have been unceremoniously dumped.

Further, successfully offering art to sensitive collectors and the general public is all about context. Legitimate galleries or dealers with decent reputations beat restaurants hands down. Artists gain legitimacy when they show in art galleries. While there may be a few exceptions, most restaurants give little but poorly-lit exposure and random splashes of gravy.

When artists are starting out, as you seem to be, Kirk, there's the temptation to go for barber shops, hotels, malls, parking lots, Heidi's place, or any other joint that will take them. I advocate working diligently and getting your work to sufficient quality so that effectively-run galleries will go to bat for you. Serious buyers, whether they're looking for art that is decorative, collector, investment or whatever, are in the acquisition mode when they walk into galleries. This is the spot for respect, satisfaction and action. While artist-run galleries, art fairs and expos are other decent venues, consistent pricing in all spots and across the spectrum of your creativity makes for long-term joy.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "It's a lot easier to sell organic vegetables from an organic grocery than from a hardware store." (Alar Jurma)

Esoterica: "Commerce," said Robert Ingersoll, "is the great civilizer." But commerce is no simple business. University degrees are given just for studying it. Then you have to go out and master the stuff in the real world. Artists, no matter how sensitive, must not proceed blindly. With a little effort they can learn how to be cheap at the right times and places, as well as (often in later years) how to be expensive. In life and art, marketing is an art. Dolly Parton got it right when she said, "You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap."

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