Artist or business man?

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Or how to promote your career as an artist, unraveling curriculum vitae, biographies, portfolios, letters of presentation and storytelling..

Any artist who wants to sell their art, must also act as a skilled businessman.

It is essential that they learn to make themselves known by efficiently a series of specific tools that will allow them to present themselves and their craft in a professional manner. And then it becomes important to have clear ideas on how to write a biography, a cover letter, a resume and how to put together a portfolio.

Let’s start from the beginning. The portfolio.

The portfolio is the business card that the artist presents projects when they comes in contact with the industry professional (art galleries, curators, collectors, etc.) In order to be useful and effective, and to generate interest and attention to their work. It must be of simple form and visually appealing. The portfolio can be paper or digital. In the digital format, all the material will be contained, for example, in a pen drive, or will be presented online on the website of their own, or will be presented online on the their own website, or placed on platforms such as Behance DeviantArt or to be created specifically for this purpose. The online portfolio is easy to read, update and share.

Guiding criteria for creating a successful portfolio.

– A key role is played by photographs of their work. You do not need to enter in the portfolio a lot of photos a dozen, maybe 15. It is though,mandatory that all artwork be photographed be done in excellent quality.
So, if you are not a good photographer, you should use a professional photographer.

– You should choose the most recent works and most representative of your style and creative vision. For each photo, it is advised to give directions regarding the title of the work, the year is was made and any other specifications.

– It is advisable to divide the photographs according to the theme or subject of the works or by the year in which it was made. Try to organize everything so that it is clear, simple and easy to review.

– It would be advantageous to consider who are the recipients of the presentation and place its contents in order to meet the demands of the subjects (for example, if it is aimed at collectors, it might be appropriate to include the prices of the items in the various photographed works)

– It would be advantageous to consider who are the recipients of the presentation and place its contents in order to meet the demands of the subjects (for example, if it is aimed at collectors, it might be appropriate to include the prices of the items in the various photographed works).

To do this, some artists decide to create different versions of their resume with specific content and giving greater or lesser emphasis to certain aspects rather than others, depending on the user (gallery, collector, shows, etc).

Important final notation: all the material and references that will be included should be constantly updated (website, resume, photographs). Updating is important because an outdated portfolio is of no interest and could be detrimental and preclude important offers of their work.