Today we had Annika Bennett from A+E Gallery from Napier come speak to the class on Professional Practice. You can visit the A+E Website HERE.
Annika began the lecture by giving us a list of her background and roles in the art industry.
She works as an Art Agent, for fine art and commercial sectors, she’s an Art dealer,
And she’s an art management consultant in which she works in branding and marketing for galleries, designers and artists.
Annika touched on a range of topics in a short time. She covered combining fine art practice alongside commercial practices. She talked about all the things she has to do as an Art Agent. She talked about professionalism. She went through a list of Do’s and Don’t s of approaching galleries and more. There was definitely a large amount of topics covered!
I was pleased that she covered the points of professionalism in the industry.
Her list of professional skills are all equally important for artists that want to appear in galleries, exhibitions or work alongside agents, dealers etc.
* You have to have communication skills.
* Come prepared. be prepared.
* You must meet and manage expectations.
* Scheduling and delivery must be planned and thought out well.
* Artist’s code of ethics!
* Learn about copyright. If you created it, You own it!
* Sales and Accounting have to be considered.
* And lastly, you must be able to work well in a team.
As someone who hasn’t exhibited a lot of work or approached a gallery, some of those factors are ones I would never have thought about. The same applies for the list of Do’s and Don’t s that Annika talked us through of approaching galleries. Many of the points she brought up surprised me, simply because I’d never thought about them before.
Overall, I really enjoyed the lecture and got heaps of notes from it to look back on.
amandajtoner 
