Behind the emerging artist

Passion and talent alone are never enough to make it in the art world. The best way for an artist to begin his or her career is by getting a Masters in Art from a prestigious art school. Every graduating class puts on a show attended by dealers and collectors, providing emerging artists with a way to build contacts early in their careers.

Los Angeles-based curator Jeff Phillips said, the world of emerging art today “is much more limited than the film world is.” Phillips added that “Art works like film did in the 1930s. It’s much more about who you are with and where you are than what you are doing.”

New York and Los Angeles are the two U.S. art centers that support emerging artists and help them to move up the food chain in the world of art. Once artists are established in the community, they can take the time to return their hometowns and spend time in cities like New York or Los Angeles only when they are showing.

Curators and gallery owners sift through thousands of artists and pieces of art and pull the artists of particularly striking art into their circles. Once an artist becomes part of a gallery, he usually has one show per year, as each gallery tends to represent about twelve different artists. Smaller galleries feed artists to larger more prestigious galleries. The “crowd” an artist belongs to is important in moving up the hierarchy of galleries.

Although this long journey of an artist’s career is often defined by buzzwords such as emerging, mid-career and established. To even be considered an emerging artist is a sign of commercial success. An emerging artist’s work can be purchased for anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 dollars. Artists need to be wary of falling prey to buzz and critical appraisal that can actually end up being detrimental to a career. Artists’ prices tend to increase quickly, an average price increase of 20-30 percent per exhibit. Middlebrook warned “Artists to be careful that prices do not go up too fast” resulting in their art being over-priced, “A dealer has to help you control your price and be cautious of price increases.” Many artists, including Middlebrook, consider labels like emerging dangerous, but understand their necessity for the art market and critics. “It’s scary to think you have a label. An artist can be 50 and still consider yourself to be emerging and changing as an artist…It’s not like being a freshmen, sophomore or junior.”

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Jason Middlebrook

Jason Middlebrook is part of the small percentage of artists who has succeeded in earning a living as an artist. He began by earning a masters in fine art in California and moved to New York in 1994. In addition to a current exhibit in Los Angeles, On February 26th Middlebrook has a show opening at his regular gallery, Sarah Meltzer, in New York. The Los Angeles show portrays the city being overtaken by nature. Middlebrook considers his art to appeal to collectors who are interested in architecture, surrealism, and the theme of man vs. nature.