Sydney Gallery shuts its doors

"A couple of days ago an email arrived in the Art Life inbox from friendly
GrantPirrie director Tony Stephens that began with the rather startling statement:

"I am writing to let you know that I will be leaving Grantpirrie Gallery. As I am sure you have heard, Bridget [Pirrie] and Stephen [Grant] have decided to close the gallery at the end of the year. With this knowledge I have tendered my resignation - giving me time to work on new ventures and explore opportunities for 2012..." "

http://theartlife.com.au/?p=5522
 

I had first heard a rumour that an important Sydney Gallery was closing down about a month ago, ironically from another art dealer. He wouldn’t say which Gallery it was and I couldn’t really guess. Whilst artist run spaces tend to come and go on a regular basis, the bigger more important commercial galleries tend to last as long as the director does. There however been a few exceptions over the last decade or so, before now the most recent and in some ways most shocking was the closure of the extremely successful and important Kaliman Gallery. Despite having a huge amount of commercial success and critical acclaim, the financial backer behind the gallery went bankrupt, effectively pulling the pin on the gallery site and backing. The dealer himself, Vasilli Kaliman upped and left for Melbourne to start a new gallery there.

This time around it was only via a link on a friends page on Facebook that I saw the news that Grantpirrie was closing. The Facebook friend is the critic and arts personlaity Andrew Frost who had posted a link to the ABC program ArtLife's blog. Grantpirie was a fairly recent gallery, part of the new and trendy Redfern gallery precint. It was a professional, internationally renowned gallery which specialised in cutting edge contemporary Australian art. Whilst the reason it shut is now fairly obvious the implications may not be.

For artists its one less gallery to show at, it also means that there will now be a few dozen more established artists looking for a new gallery, making it even harder for an unknown up and coming artist to find a spot in a commercial gallery. It highlights the fragile nature of the art world and the existence of an artist within this. The artist is after all somewhat reliant on the gallery to sell and promote their work. The well being of the gallery is crucial to the artist success. Herein lies another reason for an artist to choose carefully the gallery which they intend to approach with an exhibition in mind. The idea is that a gallery will show the work and then continue to promote and store it until the next exhibition. Potential buyers will be able to access the work via the gallery website and storeroom. Further buyers will come to associate the artist with the gallery and vice versa. The buyer will know where to watch for new work from the artist and the artist will have access to the galleries list of collectors. Remove the gallery from this equation and more often then not the artist is forced to start from scratch. Depending on what stage of their career they are at this can be devastating.

Surviving as an artist in Sydney depends on a number of approaches. An artist needs a place to produce work and the materials to make it with. An artist has to exhibit the work and network amongst other artists. The exhibtion needs to be promnoted in the media as much as possible. Finally there is the prospect of grants to help fund the costs of an art career. Here i will make an introduction to these topics which an early career artist fresh out of art school might be faced with. 

Artist Studios
Assuming an artist isn’t working from home, an artist studio is a necessity. There are a number of artist studios complexes located around the inner city. These include the 1+2 art studios in Rozelle, the May street studios in St Peters, and the Lennox street studios in Newtown. The sizes of the studios, layouts and costs vary with each studio complex. There are also waiting lists for studio space whcih need to be accounted for.

Art Supply Stores
The main art supply shops include Parkers Art Supplies,in the Rocks Oxford Art Supplies,in Paddington,and Newtown Art Supplies,in Newtown. In general each art store tends to stock similar products at a similar price with occasional store specific sales. Parkers Art Supplies stands out a boutique brand store which has brands and products which are not normally available in Australia. As a rule of thumb the more expensive the art material the better the quality.

Art Galleries
Finding a suitable gallery and arranging an exhibition is far more complex. In general the easiest place to show is one which is an artist run space open to any artist so long as they are willing to pay for the exhibition costs including rent and opening night expenses. In a sense these artist run spaces are at the bottom of the gallery hierarchy with the large commercial galleries (who have a more exclusive selection of artists only) at the top. The Art almanac is a good guide to where galleries are located and the work being shown there. The type of gallery shown at will also influence the chance of having a write up in the media. The more important the gallery the more likely the show will be reviewed.

Art Grants
Finally the process of applying for grants and scholarships should be considered by even the most recently graduated art student. Usually having university level qualifications and possibly post degree level gives a higher chance of success in the Australia Council grants.However a good all round guide to grants and art related information can be found via NAVA. Generally the best way of deciding to enter is to take note of previous recipients. The type of work and quality of work is a good barometer of how to place your won work in the context of applying for particular grants.

My first exhibition in Sydney during 1996 was held in an old former bank which had been converted into an art gallery space. It was a group show called “underemployed artists”. I remember being unsure as to how much I should price my work. I asked the gallery director who told me rather unhelpfully, “price them as high as you like” since by his reasoning if somebody likes the art enough they will buy it.

This gallery was what is known in the art world as an artist run space. Here the gallery director rents the space out to artists and often shows his/her own work, needless to say the life expectancy of artist run spaces in the cut throat real estate of inner city Sydney isn’t very long. If an artist run gallery lasts more than 3 years it is almost a veteran. So saying the gallery I was showing at didn’t last much longer. However the building remained, and over the years it became another well known artist run gallery, then a studio for various artists. Now 15 years later it has been converted into over priced inner city apartments, albeit with scarcely a shadow of its former bohemian past. I have mentioned this brief story since in a way it is a microcosm of what it is like to exist as an artist in Sydney. The constant struggle to find a gallery for emerging artists, the lack of studios and the exorbitant price of real-estate in the city due paradoxically in no small part to the bohemian allure of the area. Many artists and galleries now struggle to exist in the highly sought after properties of the inner city. So how can an artist survive in the yuppie renovator’s haven of the inner city ? Where are the galleries which might support an artists work ? How does an artist even get to exhibit work at a gallery. What if any are the alternatives to the gallery scene ? Which art supply shops are worth visiting ? How can an artist best navigate their way through the political games of the gallery scene ? Which art prizes are worth going in and what is the likelihood of success? How might an artist go about applying for government grants and scholarships. These are some of the things this blog will be exploring. Its not an easy road but as more than one artist has noted persistence can work wonders.