Visiting Artist Curator Karina Kelley
This semester’s visiting artist Curator Karina Kelley erupted such a war of emotions in me. There was a lot of great information she shared with us. A lot of it was very helpful and eye-opening as an artist. At the same time, there was also a lot of biased ideas and opinions that she presented as facts.
Some of the really relevant information shared was just the workings of a gallery. She went through each part of a gallery from the artist’s perspective and from the curator’s perspective. This was really helpful as a lot of us have never had our art shown in a gallery.
She also shared a lot of valuable tips with us. Things like spreading out and showing in multiple galleries. Learning how to price your work. Taking good pictures of your art, visiting galleries to see how the market is and how it works. Going to opening nights and the importance of networking. Also tips for organization, like knowing where all your art is in case a gallery calls you about a piece and logging all your art with dates and media.
However, she talks about the lack of art in New Hampshire which confused me. The way that she phrased things made it sound like you could really only experience art in places like Manchester and Portsmouth. Also that the Currier Museum was the only museum in New Hampshire.
Yet I’ve spent half my life as an artist in New Hampshire, actively visiting different museums and galleries around me. New Hampshire has a lot more opportunities to see art than just in Manchester and Portsmouth. We have multiple Museums and even more galleries. There are also events like the Dover Art Walk which actively tries to give everyone in the public a more active role in New Hampshire’s art community. It’s true that our state doesn’t always have the intense sense of culture that more urban states have. But there is definitely more art and opportunities for art then she presented.
Another thing that confused me was the difference between what she was saying and what she was showing. She started off the talk by telling us why she originally created her gallery. She told us about how she wanted to bring more contemporary art to New Hampshire and make art more accessible to everyone. This really excited me and I was looking forward to learning about this forward-thinking gallery.
As she began showing us pictures from her gallery and telling us more about it my excitement deflated. The art she was showing us and talking about I would have considered as progressive when the contemporary movement was started, but not as much anymore. It was clear that her gallery also fell victim to the canon of the art world. She even went as far as saying that her gallery usually doesn’t except drawings because they just don’t sell as well as paintings.
Paintings may sell better because her gallery shows more paintings than drawings. Her gallery would then draw in people who prefer paintings. If you showed drawings for the same amount of time at the same volume, they could probably produce just as much value. Just think if it had been a young Andy Warhol who had asked about screenprinting instead of a student asking about drawing? At the time he began using the silkscreen it was still a controversial art form. One that probably “didn’t sell as well as paintings”. Some of his prints go for over 65,000 now. Artists should be encouraged to use the media they can create best in, not the one that sells best. If we only present what currently sells the best on a large mass, then that will be the only art that sells the best.
Discover Art in New Hampshire:
Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park
Image by: Claudio Testa