{"id":26837,"date":"2018-03-15T13:02:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T13:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=26837"},"modified":"2018-03-16T04:16:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T04:16:54","slug":"10-things-i-learned-working-a-booth-at-spring-break-art-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/10-things-i-learned-working-a-booth-at-spring-break-art-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Things I Learned Working a Booth at SPRING\/BREAK Art Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are a New Yorker, you probably know how hectic the art world has been this past week. Armory<\/a>, NADA<\/a>, VOLTA<\/a>, Art on Paper<\/a>, and several other satellite fairs brought the visual arts to the forefront of the city\u2019s consciousness, and tourists came by the thousands to witness the vast collections each fair had to offer. <\/span><\/p>\n

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As a writer for Art Zealous, I was tasked with covering several of the fairs this week, with a special focus on\u00a0SPRING\/BREAK<\/a>. So in the typical New York fashion, a friend of a friend of a colleague got me a job working as an attendant for the Castor Gallery<\/a> booth at SPRING\/BREAK<\/a>. Our two booths at the old Cond\u00e9 Nast<\/a> building at 4 Times Square featured works by Jeanette Hayes<\/a>, an American artist based in New York, and Jonas Lund<\/a>, a Swedish artist based in Berlin. The whole experience taught me a lot about the art world, the people who populate that world in a professional capacity, those who are just stopping by, and finally, myself. Here are ten things I learned from working a booth at the 2018 SPRING\/BREAK<\/a> art show:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo \/\/ courtesy of @springbreakartfair<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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1. Gallerists are people, too.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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I had the privilege of working directly with Justin de Demko, director of Castor Gallery<\/a>, almost every day that I was there. While initially intimidated by the thought of working with an actual <\/i>gallery owner, I quickly learned that he\u2019s just like everyone else. Except cooler. He left college after a month, simply saying, \u201cthat\u2019s not for me.\u201d He moved to New York, worked behind the scenes at raves and nightclubs, climbed up the music industry ladder, and as he puts it, \u201cstumbled into the visual arts world.\u201d What a humbling tale from an art world elite, don\u2019t you think?<\/span><\/p>\n

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2. It\u2019s about the sales. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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When you walk into a museum, it\u2019s easy to get lost in the art and the academia surrounding it, especially when a museum worker goes on a ten-minute rant about brush strokes and line technique. While art fairs are certainly an aesthetic delight, you cannot forget that everything<\/i> is for sale. Even if no price is listed, if you name the right price, it\u2019s yours.<\/span><\/p>\n

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3. It\u2019s okay to admit that you don\u2019t know what the hell you\u2019re looking at.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Photo \/\/ courtesy of @springbreakartshow<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I was surprised at how many people simply were not afraid to ask questions if they were curious about a work. Even professionals in the art world did not hesitate to approach me to enjoy a lengthy discussion about the pieces displayed at my booths.<\/span><\/p>\n

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4. Artists are people, too.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Photo \/\/ courtesy of @springbreakartshow<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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If I was intimidated to meet gallerists, I was MORE\u00a0 intimidated to meet the artists. While there are always a couple of older artists at these fairs who just want to tell you how great they were back in the day, most of the artists I met could not have been more approachable. Jeanette Hayes<\/a> spent a good amount of time talking to people about her works and listened intently to their thoughts about them. Clara Claus<\/a> of the performance art duo \u201cBand Practice<\/a>\u201d answered every last question I had about the 140 works she and Melissa Godoy Nieto<\/a> produced during their time at Spring Break. <\/span><\/p>\n

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5. There is such a thing as too much art-fair-hopping in a single day (but do it anyway).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Last Wednesday I went from SPRING\/BREAK to Armory to Volta. \u201cOverwhelming\u201d doesn\u2019t come close to describing it, but the knowledge you gain from the experience makes it totally worth the effort.<\/span><\/p>\n

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6. Everyone knows everyone (or they will eventually). <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Word travels fast among fair-goers, so whether you\u2019re a booth attendant like me or the premiere artist at the fair, don\u2019t be a diva. It will come back to bite you. Be nice to everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

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7. Looking at the same work for days on end doesn\u2019t have to get old.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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I stood in front of the same booths for about 7 hours a day for a week. Everyone who came up to look at the works spoke differently about them, constantly refreshing and reworking my perspective of them. The artists incorporate so much detail, and the best works never stop giving.<\/span><\/p>\n

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8. It\u2019s not just about a piece hanging from the wall.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Especially when the work is a single painting or sculpture, we tend to forget about our surrounding environment. Stop the tunnel vision and let your focus shift to the space itself for a minute. The best booths at Spring Break were those that immersed their viewers in the total experience, from floor to ceiling. And when that experience is lacking, it\u2019s quite noticeable. <\/span><\/p>\n

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9. You never know who you\u2019re really talking to.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Justin de Demko (the Castor Gallery director) came up to me on Friday and said, \u201cI can\u2019t believe you talked to David Byrne<\/a> yesterday! He is my musical idol!\u201d I had no idea who Byrne was, but quickly found out that I had just discussed a Jonas Lund work with the founder of the Talking Heads<\/a>. Keep your A Game in mind at all times, folks. That person you\u2019re talking to could be the next big thing, if they aren\u2019t already.<\/span><\/p>\n

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10. Pregame.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Booze at art fairs is expensive. You know the drill, don’t overdo it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

Top Image \/\/ courtesy of @springbreakartshow<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are a New Yorker, you probably know how hectic the art world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":26841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,11,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}