Isn't it more validating to have a gallery sell my work than to market it myself?

No, absolutely not. Here’s the reality: no one is ever going to work as hard to move your art, market your art, and get your art in front of eyeballs as you will yourself. First, most galleries don’t do nearly as much marketing as you’d hope. Second—and this is critical—galleries typically don’t give you information on who is buying your art. That means you can never turn those buyers into collectors or continue selling to them over the course of your career. You lose that relationship entirely. Third, understand that 99 out of 100 artists don’t want to do any marketing at all—they just want to create in their studio and have someone else handle everything. That’s the centuries-old fantasy of being the court artist with a guaranteed salary. But it’s complete nonsense and not how you build a sustainable art business. If you’re in a gallery and it’s working, that’s wonderful. But relying solely on galleries is not the way to build a long-term business you can survive and thrive on. You need to own your marketing and your collector relationships.

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Asked by an artist asking if gallery representation is more validating · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2021-07-27