Photo Patrick Tomasso; image CC via unsplash.com
The pressure for artists to be present on social media is immense. But Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, even Twitter, are hungry beasts, never satisfied. Some artists spend more time tweaking their online image than producing art.
Artists need to balance the call of digital marketing so they are not just sucked into a time-sink that is more about vanity than professional practice. We asked some how they manage.
Burden or boon?
Marion Borgelt is a mid to late career artist, currently showinng in a 20-year survey at Newcastle Art Gallery. Social media did not exist in the 1970s, when she had her first solo show, and as the media exploded it took her a while to find the right space to promote her work.
‘I used Facebook for a brief moment and found that I was being driven to distraction by people’s personal photos and daily trivia—I couldn’t deactivate my account quickly enough. Prior to that I tried LinkedIn and found that equally a waste of time. Finally I settled on Instagram which I am enjoying as it is above all a visual medium which suits me. It is a great means of communication.’
Borgelt sees social media as a useful tool but finds the time it requires a drain. ‘Without doubt artists can turn social media into a very powerful too, but it takes an enormous amount of time and dedication. These are the two most critical ingredients for success using social media.
‘I made the mistake of following Kim Kardashian before I knew what I was doing on Instagram and realised that her entire notoriety is due to her large team who manages her social media—it’s a full time occupation.’
At the other end of the demographic scale Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is the youngest artist to have been commissioned for a solo exhibition by the National Gallery of Australia in recent decades. He sees social media as a natural part of his practice. His choice of platforms is also Instagram, where he ‘always try to give people a sense of what I am doing to day-to-day’.
‘Promote sounds dirty but it is not. It is a really viable way … I am not a purist I am a realist I understand a lot of the way people encounter the work is online or a screen based,’ he told ArtsHub.
He even allows social to dictate some of his artistic choices. ‘When I’m doing my exhibitions I always make sure there are some works in there that could be hero images.’
Read: How to make the most of Instagram
Produced by Gina Fairley for ArtsHub TV
American artist and writer Sharon Louden likes to check in to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook a few times a day on average. ‘If I have more time, more often,’ she said.
Louden, who will be coming to Australia next April to tour her latest book The artist as culture producer: Living and sustaining a creative life, recently discussed attitudes to social media in a conversation at New York Academy of Art with Allegra and Meredith of Sargent’s Daughters Gallery in New York.
She said contemporary gallerists like the Sargents are interested in artists who use social media to explore their whole context as an artist’s life – ‘their interests, sharing other people’s work, and not just pictures of their own work as self-promotion’.
Louden said that the number one myth to dispel is that social media is a ‘time suck’.‘If you can be intentional with your time, understand how to use each platform effectively and discipline yourself, social media can work in your favor, she said. One recommendation is using scheduling programs such as Hootsuite to manage your time posting.
Meredith Rosen and Allegra LaViola in conversation with Sharon Louden from New York Academy of Art on Vimeo.
Nice or necessary?
Melbourne photographer Prue Stent said that social media has been really important for her as a professional catalyst. ‘It has lead to a lot of great work opportunities and unique collaborations that I don’t think would have come about otherwise.
‘It makes connecting with people easy, and a profile can give you a good idea as to whether you would suit working with someone.‘I use it to share my ideas and as a record of the various projects I work on. I like to keep it as personal diary rather than a commercially focused endeavor.’
Stent has over 72,000 followers on Instagram and large international exposure for her work because of social media. ‘Instagram has also allowed me to have full control over my practice; I don’t necessarily have to rely on representation or a gallery to sell my work.’
Stanislava Pinchuk (aka miso) is an emerging Australian artist who had over 106,000 followers on Instagram and is using the medium in a most judicious manner to continue to do her work around the world.
‘With Instagram, I feel it’s like a halfway point between a folio website and a diary for me. They’re just things I’m making, seeing, reading, feeling, inspired by, thinking about. Places I’m travelling, people I’m tattooing. Which means that it becomes a way to start dialogues – to log your process, inspirations, reading, and research for people to engage with.
‘I love being recommended things to read or to see, to listen to…It feels like a pretty interesting way to engage with artists’ process, and an access to a pool of knowledge from an audience, which hasn’t really existed before.’
Miso instagram; courtesy the artist Stanislava Pinchuk
Despite her success, she doesn’t think social media is necessary, but it does have advantages. ‘As a really young artist, and someone that works in pretty diverse ways and travels a lot – I do find it really helpful in the dialogues that it creates.’
Borgelt also regards social media as an option that can be helpful rather than a necessary tool . ‘It’s not indispensable—but it does open you up to other people’s observations and insights, some of which you are not going to come across through any other media.’
Louden was a little more hard-lined: ‘I think an artist not using social media of some kind is doing themselves a disservice. Part of being in the contemporary art world is to be contemporary, and if the artist who is not engaged with the public world wants their work to be in the public realm, they have to dive into engaging socially on-line.’
‘It’s a very effective way to communicate professionally and otherwise. Social media is definitely a natural place for announcements of exhibitions, news, sharing thoughts and articles. It’s also a way to hide behind your computer so you can actually stay in your studio and work. I have found it to be a great way to be a part of the community without physically being present.’
instagram screen grabs for Marion Borgelt and Prue Stent
The protection of a public
Chinese-born Australian artist Guo Jian is also a believer in the necessity of social media but for different reasons. Guo’s initial impression of social media was that it was all about selling product but he now sees it as an essential part of professional practice – and of sustaining a career in a difficult political context.
Guo is very active on Chinese social media like Wechat and Weibo, and sometimes on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. ‘Mostly I use social media to pass my messages to people to let people know what I am trying to say,’ he said.
Colleague and friend artist Alex Seton said being on social media gave Guo the protection of an engaged public. ‘Guo Jian is re-posting the reality of inside China and, arguably, was kept safe whilst in jail there by the noise generated on social media by his international community.’
Guo said: ‘Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Instagram are all banned in China, so I didn’t know what really happened on social media about my case till I got back here (Australia). It was good to know that you got people to support you when you were isolated in prison.’
Read: Australian artist Guo Jian detained in Beijing
Follow them at:
Marion Borgelt: Instagram marion_borgelt
Sharon Louden: Instagram sharonlouden and Twitter @ LoudenStudio
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran: Instagram rams_deep69
Stanislava Pinchuk: Instagram m_i_s_o_ and Tumblr
Prue Stent: Instagram prue_stent
Guo Jian does not have an Instagram account. He is active on Facebook and Chinese social media.
