MurrayMinchin
Membership Council
Many of us are happy keeping our photography as very personal means of expression and will never seek fame & fortune through our images. Some, however, may be concerned about leaving more than an indistinct ripple in the Art World pool. If you crave the latter, you may want to understand some of the Art World's inner workings in order to negotiate a path towards success, fame, and maybe even fortune.
Turns out it isn't necessarily how good your work is, or who you know; it's the tendrils of influence from the people you know connecting them to the best/biggest/most prestigious galleries and institutions. The fewest number of connections is the fastest, but people do "make it" from the hinterlands.
The numbers have been crunched. Please find below several links describing one interpretation of what's going on:
"In areas of human activity where performance is difficult to quantify in an objective fashion, reputation and networks of influence play a key role in determining access to resources and rewards. To understand the role of these factors, we reconstructed the exhibition history of half a million artists, mapping out the coexhibition network that captures the movement of art between institutions. Centrality within this network captured institutional prestige, allowing us to explore the career trajectory of individual artists in terms of access to coveted institutions. Early access to prestigious central institutions offered life-long access to high-prestige venues and reduced dropout rate. By contrast, starting at the network periphery resulted in a high dropout rate, limiting access to central institutions.
Our dataset...combines information on artists’ exhibitions, auction sales, and primary market quotes. It offers information on 497,796 exhibitions in 16,002 galleries, 289,677 exhibitions in 7568 museums, and 127,208 auctions in 1239 auction houses, spanning 143 countries and 36 years (1980 to 2016…
...52% of the artists had one recorded show, a few high-profile artists were exhibited at an exceptional number of venues (fig. S1, c and d). Although half of the auctioned artworks sold for less than $4000, the price for art was as high as $110,500,000..."
A quick explanation by an author of the study:
I've only shown my work in three cities on the north coast of British Columbia, Canada, so am far, far, far away from any gallery or collector with connections deeper into the Art World. One day I may go south with work in hand, maybe...
Do you care? Got a better idea/plan?
Turns out it isn't necessarily how good your work is, or who you know; it's the tendrils of influence from the people you know connecting them to the best/biggest/most prestigious galleries and institutions. The fewest number of connections is the fastest, but people do "make it" from the hinterlands.
The numbers have been crunched. Please find below several links describing one interpretation of what's going on:
"In areas of human activity where performance is difficult to quantify in an objective fashion, reputation and networks of influence play a key role in determining access to resources and rewards. To understand the role of these factors, we reconstructed the exhibition history of half a million artists, mapping out the coexhibition network that captures the movement of art between institutions. Centrality within this network captured institutional prestige, allowing us to explore the career trajectory of individual artists in terms of access to coveted institutions. Early access to prestigious central institutions offered life-long access to high-prestige venues and reduced dropout rate. By contrast, starting at the network periphery resulted in a high dropout rate, limiting access to central institutions.
Our dataset...combines information on artists’ exhibitions, auction sales, and primary market quotes. It offers information on 497,796 exhibitions in 16,002 galleries, 289,677 exhibitions in 7568 museums, and 127,208 auctions in 1239 auction houses, spanning 143 countries and 36 years (1980 to 2016…
...52% of the artists had one recorded show, a few high-profile artists were exhibited at an exceptional number of venues (fig. S1, c and d). Although half of the auctioned artworks sold for less than $4000, the price for art was as high as $110,500,000..."
A quick explanation by an author of the study:
I've only shown my work in three cities on the north coast of British Columbia, Canada, so am far, far, far away from any gallery or collector with connections deeper into the Art World. One day I may go south with work in hand, maybe...
Do you care? Got a better idea/plan?