Vanity and Shame

Transcript of recent interaction between myself and Ico Gallery:

Dear Stephanie Lee Jackson,

I recently been introduced [sic] to your work online, and I must say I'm very impressed. After reviewing your website, I'm extremely interested in finding out more about you and the process of your work. I feel that your work would be a grand addition to Perceptions Of Reality, which is our September collective exhibition that uses the Surrealist ideology of entering a different cosmos, and combines it with that of abstraction and Fauvism, which in effect will create an alternate view of reality, previously unexplored by one artist. This exhibition will the inaugural exhibition in our new flagship location in our extravagant ground floor 3,000 sq ft gallery in Chelsea.

[two paragraphs of pretentious blather about "renaissance," which, in case you didn't know, is a French word meaning "rebirth."]

Upon perusal of the attached proposal, I found the real reason for this 'career opportunity': $2500 in fees. I replied posthaste.

VANITY. GALLERY.

Get a clue. And take me off your mailing list.

Vanity galleries are like Nigerian 419 scammers; usually they crawl back into the woodwork like cockroaches when confronted with the truth about their business practices. I was thus rather surprised to receive a reply.

You do realize why you're [sic] resume is non-existent, right? With an attitude like that, you will not make it in the business of art!

My first impulse was to press the 'delete' button and forget about it. But I have been making a habit, lately, of stating my boundaries when strangers try to shame me, even though this may come across as hysterical and overengaged; it is helping me eradicate the bad habit of taking jerks too seriously.

Hello, could you BE any tackier?

I know enough about the 'business of art' to know that artists who show with galleries that charge thousands of dollars in fees never get any artistic respect, and are unlikely to recoup their fees in sales, because galleries that charge fees have less incentive to build a collector base; their overhead is already covered. They also prey upon artists with 'non-existent resumes' because they are looking for the ignorant and the insecure who haven't yet figured this out, and are thus vulnerable to their scams.

Genuine, respected art dealers make studio visits, spend time getting to know their artists, and build a consistent program over time. They don't do online searches and send out flattering (at first) emails to every random artist they find. This isn't the first solicitation I've received from you; you need to keep a better database.

My 'attitude' is generally just fine, thank you very much. I am just sick of being an object of predation for every fool with an MBA and cultural pretensions. If you believe in art, put your money where your mouth is and start a real gallery. Select your artists for their skill, passion and commitment, not their economic idiocy, and treat them decently. Which means NOT charging them fees.

Good day.

This is pretty much the basic screed, which any artist ought to know by heart. What I want to point out, though, is the levers which predators of all stripes use to control people.

Note in their first contact, the fulsome level of flattery; this is the sort of thing that every adolescent assumes will come as their just due--say, when they first upload their work to Saatchi Online. You have to be working a few years, and have your illusions shattered a few dozen times, before you truly understand that nobody will EVER come across your work online, or on the street, or in a restaurant, and be so blown away that they offer you a Chelsea exhibition and thousands of dollars per piece. (Unless you are Swoon, or Barry McGee. And I'm not even sure that both of these artists are solvent.) Our culture is too saturated with images for that to happen. Plus, anyone who thinks they truly understand what an artist's work is like from an online image doesn't understand visual art at all.

Then, of course, once their cover is blown, out come the nasties: "You do know why your resume is nonexistent, right?" People who use flattery as a tool are highly prone to use humiliation as a weapon, since these are two sides of the same coin. Simply, they're trying to shut me up by hitting my most vulnerable spot.

And the reason I'm posting about this at length, online, despite the fact that it showcases my lack of career success, is that vanity and shame are the forces which keep most of us isolated, helpless, and ultimately unsuccessful. Predators can only survive when they've got a steady supply of weak, ignorant victims who don't share information. Once we learn to step outside of our egos and ask ourselves, "hey, what's this person's agenda? What's the bigger picture? Who is profiting, and who is the loser?" it makes us much harder to manipulate. Then maybe the vanity galleries will disappear--not to mention the vanity governments.