Kris Gebhardt, a mixed-media impressionist painter, is adrenalized because he and his wife, Angela—who is an abstract artist in her own right, as well as Kris’s business partner—are front-row spectators as the stale, over-sanctioned industry of last century collides with the vibrating new way to buy and sell art. Like today’s authors who write and sell books without publishers, or tomorrow’s rock icons who are making it without a record label, painters and sculptors are going solo— and saying goodbye to the traditional gallery matrix.
Putting art on display is the future of buying and selling this commodity, and international art fairs are the becoming more popular for this purpose. But first, artists have to correspond with collectors, designers, and art magazines; post lots of pictures on social media; and fill out countless forms online in order to add pieces to art websites. You’d think that after all that marketing, the artists’ and former gallery owners’ work would be done. Au contraire! In this brave new frontier of show, tell, and sell, the sweat investment is just the beginning.
