We had a very successful first official art show as a gallery on Sept 30th. Successful on many fronts. Good turn out, positive comments on the gallery, beautiful artwork and success on our mission of pairing artists with charities to help raise funds for a good cause. Most importantly we sold some artwork!
Hence where my soap box starts.
I got my start in the art business managing a gallery on First Avenue in 1986. The peak of the First Avenue Art scene. Every 6-8 weeks, we would re-hang the gallery, buy a bunch of wine and cheese and sit back and serve people who were having a blast with no intent on buying any artwork. Seeing how many of those galleries went out of business, or had to move to lower overhead, my guess is most had the same results.
I moved on and developed a successful corporate art consulting business where I decided I wasn't going to sit back and wait for people to walk in the door and buy. I was going to seek out the people who bought art. We also had great parties, serving free wine and cheese to the people who were buying artwork from us as a thank you, not an enticement to buy.
A few years back someone wrote an article in the Star Tribune about missing the First Avenue art scene, and that no one was buying art anymore. The truth is, galleries cant exist just showing art, people have to buy it too. They have been buying it, but in different ways; through consultants (including my former company), interior designers, furniture stores and online. I believe there is a model in-between, where galleries can show quality work by emerging and established artists at reasonable prices and people will buy.
This is what we are trying to do at Hennes Art Company. Find great art at good prices, get in front of the buyers of artwork and make a match. Everyone wins, artist, client and gallery owner. Too often the gallery owner is left on the sidelines.
I have some ideas on how to better promote the gallery scene in Minneapolis, so stay tuned. My experience with getting PR, calendar listings and online references has been eye opening.
