Arts Professional Story: Michael Workman: On Getting Published

Both should send press releases and show cards for their exhibitions. Artist should get their work out there any way they can, whether it’s showing in galleries or little apartment spaces, storefronts, whatever. It’s always a good idea to donate your work to silent auctions and fundraisers as well. It will get seen by all the people who go and maybe even draw the attention of a few collectors. Ultimately the goal is to get your work out there, to make it visible. I love it when I go to New York for Armory and there’s always a little group of artists who stage their own sideshow literally right out on the street in front of the piers. I always give them a few minutes of my time. It’s all about building connections, getting seen.

If you’re a gallery, it’s up to you to get out there. Apply to art fairs. If you don’t get accepted, go to the show anyway, see what they are accepting, get a sense of what it’s all about. I’m talking about the art marketplaces, not the more cultural type festivals and events, these are places specifically designed for selling art, attracting collectors. You have to know the difference between an academic art fair and a decorative show, or even an antiques show. What are these shows about? How do they conduct their commerce? Are they an invitation-only show or do they accept applications (or some combination of the two)? What are the benefits of one type of show versus another? What’s your particular niche? I go to a ton of these type of shows every year, looking at galleries and evaluating how well they’re doing. Have they planned an exhibition or is it more a garage-sale style rollout of their entire stable of artists? Does the gallery and the work they show demonstrate any kind of solid concept?

My list of shows to see include the top tier art fairs including Art Basel in Switzerland, Armory in New York, Frieze in London, and then a whole long list of alternative and “satellite” shows. These include Zoo and Year_06 in London, the Scope shows, any and all the fairs in Miami including Art Basel Miami Beach, DiVa, Pool, Flow art, the NADA and Pulse shows–though, because I’m running a show in Miami it’ll be more difficult to get around to all these shows for very long–Art Chicago, of course and the Affair at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland. It’s exhausting, there are hundreds more fairs, and that doesn’t include Biennials and major museum or other types of institutional exhibitions.

My business is art fairs. Each of these shows has their own distinct niche, their own distinct flavor and market appeal. They’re all gallery shows, of course, and it’s great going to them because you have an instant connection. It’s an amazing feeling, no matter where in the world you go, whether you’re flying into Berlin, Dubai or Glasgow, to have these people there who you know. And we’re all in the same business, so they’ve got galleries to show us, new artists they’ve discovered, there’s always too much to talk about. There are also a number of shows unique to the art fair circuit that I’m particularly excited about, including Geisai in Tokyo. That’s an all-artist fair, though they have a few galleries. They pack over one thousand artists into an exhibition hall in Tokyo, which is just unbelievable. I love the idea of artists in direct control of their marketplace though, in Japan, that marketplace apparently needs some help. The “superflat” artist Takashi Murakami, who started Geisai, says it’s about jump-starting Japan’s marketplace; I can’t imagine how much administrative work’s involved in keeping track of that many artists.

If there’s time, I’d also like to broaden my travel itinerary to include Art Forum Berlin, with visits to favorite destinations of mine like Paris and Dublin. I need to visit China soon too, I haven’t decided whether Shanghai or Beijing. Ahh, I want to go everywhere. But I can’t realistically handle much more than I’m already doing. And that’s it, see, when I go to these shows and I see the same galleries out there, I know they’re doing as much as they can too. They’re reaching for international recognition. You can’t just sit on your sofa and expect the world to come knocking on your door. It requires effort, exhaustion, tireless hard work.


Michael Workman is Director of Bridge, NFP, a Chicago-based arts programming organization. Bridge, NFP, organizes annual Bridge Art Fairs in New York, Miami, Berlin and London and pioneered a multi-use facility that provides incubation space at 119 N. Peoria for developing arts organizations. Bridge, NFP, also formerly published Bridge Magazine, for which Workman served as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. He is Art Editor for the Chicago alternative weekly newspaper, NewCity, and Chicago correspondent for Flash Art . His writing has appeared in New Art Examiner, the Chicago Reader, zingmagazine, TenbyTen and Contemporary magazine.

More Arts Professional Stories by Michael Workman:

On Art Fairs
On Being a Critic
On Bridge
On Chicago