Artist Career Paths

On this platform, we have given practical and industry-approved career advice for artists to increase their chances for success. However, there is more than one way to be successful, and different goals result in different career paths. Before we expand on these career paths, please note that the most important thing is to follow the path that feels right for you. However, due to many misconceptions, false information, and some very worrying trends that are incredibly harmful to artists, I found it of the utmost importance to write this article, discussing the bitter truth and dilemmas an artist faces regarding their journey and career.

At CAI, we have always provided adequate advice to empower and enable artists to find long-term success, climbing the ladder of the art world, resulting in critical and commercial success, and being in the running for the highest achievable goals and levels of being established there are for artists. This long-term career advice includes aiming to work with art galleries and applying to artist opportunities such as residencies, grants, and awards to improve your overall profile. In response, we often hear or read the following criticism towards these pieces of advice; that it is outdated, that galleries are money-grubbing entities that make money on the back of the artist, and that the real artists do not care about the art industry and the aforementioned art opportunities.

The alternative is growing the audience on social media, selling directly to your clients, having a webshop, and creating your own art business. So it seems that there are two—almost opposing—mindsets or career paths; the traditional gallery circuit as a represented artist, climbing the ladder of the art world by exhibiting in galleries, institutions, and other art events. And on the other hand, the self-representation via the influencer model, growing your audience on social media and selling it online directly to your clients.

Please note how I mentioned “almost-opposing” mindsets. Although we advise you to achieve success via the first career path—and I’ll say why sooner rather than later—we also recommend you grow an audience on social media. These strategies or career paths do not necessarily need to be mutually exclusive. However, the first is most powerful when there is a very non-commercial approach, focusing on the long term and trusting the process; the latter is most successful when being more commercial and aiming for short-term success. So they can be seen or experienced as opposites. From this dualistic perspective, a polarizing discourse has emerged, resulting in two camps that renounce each other. And in this discourse, we encounter a lot of misconceptions and false information, casting a negative connotation on the gallery circuit.

Before I get rid of these untruths and come to a more unsettling bitter truth for artists, it is essential to state that I do not want to promote the sphere of the art world of my personal career path and the sphere in which CAI operates. First and foremost, you should do whatever you feel like doing. If you enjoy following the trends with Instagram reels, go for it. If you enjoy uploading studio vlogs to YouTube, go for it. If you enjoy painting commissions, go for it. If you enjoy working your way up in the gallery scene, go for it. If you enjoy painting by yourself, just for fun—you guessed it—go for it! Art is a feast. Focus on what you like the most without decrying anyone else. And before you continue your road, please be aware of the following information, worrying trends, and dilemmas for artists and the art world. Starting with the misconceptions about galleries and the high-end art world.

Debunking Common Misunderstandings about Art Galleries

We often read statements that art galleries are money-grubbing entities making money on the back of hard-working artists. They don’t care about art and only care about money. They attract rich people who buy the works not out of love but as an investment. These statements are based on the frustration of various artists who feel left out by the galleries, see the flashing headlines about multi-million dollar sales, and argue that fancy exhibition spaces are a pretentious framework to fool the rich into spending their money on art. Whereas there might be various decadent aspects when it comes to the high-end art world, true decadence and mind-boggling prices are only the top layer of the art world and art galleries—the top 5%, the mega-galleries, the established artists, and the corporate investors. The bulk of the art world exists of normal, middle-class people with a heart for art.

Most art galleries are run by normal people, who love art, and aim to promote and support artists they genuinely believe in. With their private funds, they take grand financial risks to offer the ideal environment for the artist’s work to be seen and to create a buzz around your work by organizing exhibitions so the artist can sell their work and start to climb to ladder of success by making a name for himself. $5.000 per month for rent, $1.000 production costs per show, $500 on printed matter per show, $1.000 for drinks and food per opening, $2.000 per month to the PR agency for press coverage, approximately $1.000 shipping costs to get your works to the gallery, not even mentioning paying staff wages and taxes.

The gallery takes all the financial risks with its own money to promote and represent its artists, sell them, and create milestone exhibitions where their art can be seen by real collectors, curators, other galleries, and more. In short, the 50% commission seems more than fair. And by working with this commission, growing the artist’s career will result in more demand for the artist and, thus, more sales, resulting in more income for the gallery. A mutually beneficial collaboration is essential in the art world. What is good for the gallery is good for the artist, and vice versa.

A good exhibition program and promising or established represented artists are at the core of any successful gallery. The gallery creates its own artistic world by curating its exhibition program, and therefore the ones that curate the best programs will also be the most successful. And it is not the gallery that determines what the market will buy; it is the market itself, the people. At the start of any successful artist, there was the support and interest of normal middle-class collectors. Without this natural demand or appeal, no matter how much money you invest in an artist, the artist cannot become successful. So finding good artists is key for the economic situation of the gallery.

So the successful ones are the ones that pursue artistic goals—and considering the risk and challenging environment for galleries, when they succeed in this aspect, their successes are well-deserved. So instead of looking at them with a pessimistic envious eye, claiming their champagne and taste when it comes to art are pretentious, have a closer look with an open mind and see how things actually work in real life. Get to know the person behind the gallery, get to know the collectors who visit and acquire work in that gallery, or learn how the gallery changed the lives of various artists. Their champagne during an exhibition opening is no more pretentious than the champagne we drink when celebrating New Year’s Eve or the birth of a newborn child. Once again, art is a feast, and the galleries connect people—not only rich people—but private collectors, art enthusiasts, artists, other galleries, art students, art critics, and many more.

Navigating the Pros and Cons of Galleries vs. Social Media for Artists

The Competition

So what is the problem with art galleries that makes us think that self-representation via social media and the influencer model is the ideal solution—and if so, is this model indeed a perfect solution in the first place? The main problem with art galleries is undeniable; it is too competitive, and the art world is too saturated when it comes to the available art and the number of artists. Discontented feelings of not standing a chance are ubiquitous, or not have equal opportunities compared to the artists who went to art school, live in a major art city, or have wealthy parents, so they do not need to get a full-time job to pay the bills. The truth is the chances for gallery representation or not very good in the first place—even the majority of trained artists, the rich kids, and artists living in New York or Paris struggle to find gallery representation, and most never will.

As any study has proven, being an artist is no guarantee for success—and this is not the fault of the galleries. There are more artists than galleries to represent them, more paintings than walls to hang them, and more works available than there are collectors to acquire them. However, this does not imply that making it art is like playing the lottery. In the end, great art will always prevail. Always! If it is good, then there will be interest in it, there will be a market for it, and there will be a gallery willing to support the artist and proudly represent them. The art world is tough, but in a way, it is also very honest and democratic—regardless of the circulating pessimistic and anarchistic thoughts and misconceptions. The galleries do not decide what is good; the people do—the collectors—normal middle-class collectors in the first place.

So it is only natural that so many artists without representation are also looking for ways to be seen and earn a living while doing what they love—and rightfully so! If it is not happening, there is nothing wrong with creating your own success. And social media seems to be the ideal solution! You can grow a following by creating content, and when doing the right things considering the algorithms of social media platforms, you can achieve tremendous numbers that eventually will result in sales. Social media for artists is also competitive, but it is less competitive and more clear how to achieve success; follow the trends, create a lot of content, post daily, engage with your audience, et cetera. The focus seems to be on quantity and not quality, as is the case with the conversion rate. It is much lower than in galleries, as is the interaction with the artwork viewing it from a screen instead of real life. But due to thousands, up to millions of views, you will find people to sell your work to.

The Longevity of Your Career

However, beyond the likes, social media, or the influencer model for artists, one must also be aware of the other side of the coin. First and foremost, the success of your art does not solely depend on the quality of your art but on your content creation. As soon as you stop the content creation, or your content no longer works for your platform’s algorithm, the sales will stop. You depend on it—more than an artist would rely on a gallery. Even more, the social media platform and its algorithm might even force you to change your art and the content you create to remain relevant.

Please think of those who worked so hard to build an engaging community in a private Facebook group for their art before Facebook suddenly seemed to die a silent death. Or what about the Instagram platforms with tens of thousands of followers that now are forced to make reels in an entirely different manner if they want to remain seen? A worrying and frustrating dilemma for artists; do you also start to sing along with the trending audios and make a spectacle of your creation process? And what does this mean about your artistic integrity as an artist and a person, doing whatever the algorithm wants you to do? Or what about YouTube and how click-bait titles or false promises perform better than what is genuine and authentic?

Technology and trends do not age well, harming your career’s longevity. Your art career that finally took off thanks to social media can come to a halt overnight, or you’ll have to do things you’d rather not do—becoming more and more a content creator and moving away from being an artist. The gallery circuit has been around for decades, as is the art world. Your relevance depends on your art, and not on trends or an algorithm. Artists can even remain relevant posthumously, as your art and career have become an integral and indelible part of art history—even with mid-career artists. In short, success might be more accessible in the short term as the competition is lower via the influencer model; it is more fragile. However, the traditional art world remains the best option for long-term success and genuine longevity for your career.

Unveiling the Financial Realities

This short-term and long-term dichotomy between the two career paths also stands strong regarding the financial reality for artists. Becoming a full-time artist via the traditional gallery circuit is a process of patience without guarantees. Even when you are being represented, one cannot expect to be able to go full-time just yet, even if a top-notch gallery represents you. It takes time and numerous shows to inflate that demand for an artist’s work, as they must prove they are on the good track with every exhibition. Via the influencer model and social media, success can occur much quicker—especially for the happy few. Out of nowhere, the algorithm of YouTube pushes your video and suggests it to hundreds of thousands of people, or Instagram starts to suggest your reels consistently in people’s feeds.

However, only very few will be able to go full-time as, generally speaking, social media artists need more sales than gallery artists due to the lower price point. If you sell your work in art galleries, the price point is correct from the start, whereas via social media, in which we have a different audience and engagement, lower prices are the reality for sales. So regardless of the 50% commission for galleries, the artist will have more revenue via galleries than with social media. Once again, social media forces us to focus on the quantity of sales and not the quality. And it only makes sense. If we have to post new art daily, the offer is greater, so the price point will be lower. And, if we find it online, our interaction is much lower, so when we fall in love with it, it is not as irresistible and convincing as when seeing the real thing while visiting an entire show with various works of the artist.

There is also a different audience via social media. A larger audience is looking for something nice to decorate their homes. However, they are not always serious art collectors, so they value art differently. This brings us to another aspect; artists on social media will reach their financial ceiling a lot sooner. In the gallery circuit, the sky is the limit. Whereas via social media, you will find it very hard to sell your works above $5.000—whereas, in art galleries, this is a very common and reasonable price for an artist who is becoming a bit more established. Your prices start between $1.000 and $10.000, and not to mention; you could go beyond this mark and sell your works for a lot more in the long run if your works perform well, without having to worry about the financial and marketing aspects—you can just focus on creating the best art possible.

So the solution with social media, the answer once more is more quantity. More views, more artwork, and more sales. But this cannot be the best way to experience or create art. Of course, when being a successful art influencer, there are other ways to cash in on your audience. However, this brings us to another almost sophistical debate. Are you a full-time artist if the majority of your income comes from social media collaborations or ad income via, for instance, the YouTube partner program? Once again, we are moving away from quality art and towards quantity and content creation. Don’t get me wrong, if you love making those trending reels on Instagram, do it. And a platform such as YouTube is terrific and powerful, with the most natural and straightforward monetization for its creators that can change your financial situation instantly. But are we still professional artists if we do not sell any art but are able to go full-time due to the YouTube money? And if it’s irrelevant where the money comes from, are we still pursuing artistic purposes, or are we pursuing commercial ones? Food for thought!

But as I mentioned, this is a sophistical debate. And if you can become financially independent thanks to social media, that’s great! Do what you love, but remember that the financial reality for influencer artists is not always as appealing as the potential rewards in the gallery circuit. You’ll hit your income ceiling much sooner, whereas you can continue to grow in the art world and earn a living simply by creating art. The art world is designed so that the artist can be an artist. You don’t have to be a social media expert, a powerful salesperson, or be on the road all the time, traveling from art festival to art festival. You can create art without comprises, focusing on quality and not quantity. Art in its most pure form is at the center of the high-end art world. If we compare a booth of a self-represented artist from an art festival with the booth of an established gallery at an art fair, we can only conclude that the latter will be the better setting to experience art because that is what matters, and all the commercial successes are a natural result, and not the incentive.

The Dark Side of Online Opportunities for Artists

So it is safe to say that art galleries have their pros and cons. In the end, the art world is very competitive and takes a lot of patience, talent, hard work, and also a touch of fortune to become successful, but it is, in the long run, the most lucrative, offers the most longevity for your career, and you can focus just on the art. But as we have mentioned at the start of this article, art galleries and success on social media don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can keep your options open, grow your audience on social media while remaining professional and create industry-approved content, so you can prosper on social media and in the traditional gallery circuit.

However, a more worrying tendency in the art world is how social media and new online opportunities in the art world reduce mobility in the art world, so it becomes more difficult for artists to become established. The art galleries struggle to survive, especially if they aren’t in a major art city. The mega-galleries take up the top side of the spectrum, monopolizing the biggest transactions and the top collectors in the primary art market. New opportunities such as online marketplaces such as Saatchi and selling through social media take away the lower side of the spectrum of collectors collecting with a budget lower than $5.000 per sale.

One might think this is a natural and good tendency for artists as they become less dependent on art galleries, and it is the future for artists in the 21st century. However, as this middle spectrum becomes smaller, so there are fewer and fewer small to medium-sized galleries. By doing so, there are once again fewer galleries for more and more artists, resulting in fewer exhibition opportunities for artists in general. And the thing you need to realize; these exhibitions are milestones and critical events for the career of the artist. They create a buzz around an upcoming artist, show their work in real life and attract people that are crucial for the further development of that artist. These small and medium-sized galleries are essential to open doors in the art world and to work towards that long-term success and a lasting career of longevity, quality, and earning good money.

If these galleries continue to disappear, the mobility of the art world will decrease, making it harder for artists to grow their careers and climb to ladder of the art world, reaching a ceiling for their careers prematurely. Further, because of this growing lack of exhibition opportunities, opportunistic new business models occur, such as vanity galleries, charging artists to exhibit their work instead of earning a living on a commission basis and aiming to support and make some money for them.

The bitter truth is that online art marketplaces and social media result in fewer exhibitions. At first, they look like a great opportunity and an ideal solution for artists, but besides this decreasing mobility in the art world, we aren’t engaging with the art world anymore. Fewer exhibitions mean we no longer talk with our collectors, gallery directors, the press, art enthusiasts, and curators. We no longer see the pieces in real life, presented in a full-scale show that reinforces the experience of the art. Instead, we create a work, upload it, and sell it. It makes some nice short-term money and is very efficient but it does not add anything to your career. So instead of connecting via social media, we are growing apart.

Renouncing social media is not the solution either. In fact, we love it, and we have always advised you to use it to your advantage by growing an audience to increase your credibility while maintaining your artistic integrity and professional profile by only creating industry-approved content that is in line with unwritten rules of the art world. I don’t want to impose this strategy on anyone, nor do I want to pursue people they must try to make in the art world via the gallery circuit. There is so much to discover in art, and I believe we need all of it; we need the art influencers, the established art galleries, but also artists making a career via grants and working for institutions, the artists working on a commission basis painting family portraits, the artist making a living as a teacher or doing workshops, and much more. However, before pursuing success via social media, be aware of the pros and cons, and do not discard art galleries as pretentious and money-grubbing entities. Inform yourself, find out what works best for you, and above all, enjoy the journey.

Last Updated on February 16, 2024