So the 33rd Artexpo NY, a trade show for the art industry, has come and gone and I thought I'd let my fellow artists know what I thought about the event. This 3 day event with 400 exhibitors was held on March 18, 19 & 20th. Fri was the trade day, a day where littlewigs (unknown to emerging) artists could meet bigwigs (major national & international galleries). Sat. and sun. was open to the public.
This was my first time to Artexpo NY. I originally planned on attending on Friday but went on Saturday as I didn't discover until the day before that Friday was for the trade only, as an artist you'd think I was part of the trade, but the only info I found seemed to indicate that Friday was for exhibiting artists and galleries only, they wanted your business license and a photo of your store front, Umm... would a pic of my crowded dining room filled with canvas and paint supplies qualify?
At Artexpo NY I met and talked to a number of wonderful artists, the first one, an abstract artist, told me she had sold 18 paintings the first day! Another artist sold a number of works to a buyer in Abu Dhabi one of which was a large 8' w x 4' h. At Artexpo NY I saw art priced from the low $100's to $27k.
And I had a great conversation with a great guy, abstract artist Mario Alberico http://www.gallery119.com/ a bone cancer survivor from the Chicago area. He told me he had made a some sales of his wonderful abstract tree paintings.
For Elizabeth Williams http://elizabethwilliamsart.com it was her first year. She said "It was a great show.. In total, Sold 32 works, got 3 galleries possibilities, and a commission." However she noted as I did too, that "lots of booth neighbors no sales, no press, trade day too long."
Elizabeth's works she sold ranged from 7"x7" up to 44"x44". I really liked her work!
Towards the end of the day I talked to Charles Harold of the Charles Harold Company in Tampa, FL. I told him I would check out his web site as he was busy and He told me he didn't have a web site (he does but there's just a place holder) because they were so busy that paintings were selling faster than the time it took to put it on the web. So that's a positive sign!
I think what surprised me the most was the variety of art & artists from all over the world, Brazil, Russia, Japan, China, Europe and the African continent. And the art was just as varied from abstract to photo realism to tribal art. Altho the show was mostly geared to paintings there were plenty of galleries doing a brisk business in prints on canvas and there was good amount of sculptures, photography, mixed media and more. Also a trend I noticed was that there were quite a few artists who had their own gallery.
Over the 3 days of the event Artexpo had more than 25 free educational talks on subjects such as pricing your work, marketing 101, selling art in a challenging economy, art licensing, marketing for galleries and more. The talks were led by industry professionals such as Artexpo CEO Eric Smith, George Sakkal and more. Also in attendance were celebs Jane Seymour and Peregrine Honig who gave a few talks.
As far as the show itself artist Anne Raymond http://anneraymond.com who I contacted after the show, did not feel the move out at the end of the show was well organized and felt that there should have been more promotion in the NY newspapers. But she did note she had covered her costs and had a few leads to follow up on.
Also I noticed that in the Solo section while the talks were ongoing they shut off many of the lights putting some artists displays in a poor lighting situation. And a few artists felt that the preponderance of glicee prints affected sales of their works on paper and monotypes etc.
Bottom line - Ok a booth at Artexpo NY isn't exactly cheap. A booth in the shared Solo section is $1750 and in the Exhibit Space it starts at $3,300 for a 5'x10' wide booth. And I saw many artists and Galleries with multiple booths!
I saw many artists making sales and some who were not. And I think that's to be expected. At the end of the day for the artist who is looking for gallery representation and your work is of sufficient quality and style of work is in demand this is one national event that's worth being a part of. At Artexpo NY you can make contacts that propels your career to new heights!
You can also check out Artexpo's photostream - http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexpo/
You can check out some of the pictures I took here - http://on.fb.me/go9lXt
Tom Trial is an abstract artist from CT. You can visit his web site at:
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