What’s it worth to you to get a gallery exhibition of your artwork? Sure, galleries are in business to sell art, earning a commission of between 40 and 60 percent for every sale of work consigned to them contemporary artists, so their profit margin should cover the costs of promoting and advertising exhibits, requiring artists to just pay for the materials they need to make their work. That would make plenty of sense if most or all of the artwork the galleries display actually sold – that doesn’t happen too often, especially in those galleries showing contemporary art by artists who aren’t famous. Those gallery owners also need to pay rent, which ranges from thousands of dollars to tens or thousands of dollars per month, depending on the city and what neighborhood in the city in which they are located. Continue reading
For Charley Friedman, a “typical day would be going to the studio and fixing something at a property.” What he does at the studio – sculptural pieces in a conceptual art vein – would be easily understood by most artists, and perhaps so would be the “fixing something” at one of the commercial properties owned by his in-laws in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is a part-time handyman (and occasional sales and rental agent), part-time visiting instructor at the University of Nebraska and part-time artist. If you want to reach him, call his Brooklyn, New York cell phone, because he and his wife keep an apartment there. (You can’t be a New York artist if you don’t have a New York address.) 
