Saturday 18 October 2008

Mooch art - running a new art gallery in manchester

If anyone is curious what it is like to be in the art industry, work in a gallery and meet up with artists then this is your lucky day.
Whether you think art and the industry is pointless, poncey, frivolous or flawed I want to just tell it how it is. Clearly from a gallery point of view, art is the what drives creativity in this country. Without it we would be stuck a rubbish environment, Orwellian and bleak with little colour or style.
Mooch art is a gallery in Manchester (England) and we opened on the 26th June 2008. Things are still pretty new and we are still building a name for ourselves. As soon as the gallery opened its doors, a flood of artists came by to show their appreciation for the gallery and to try and get me to sell their stuff. Hopefully some artists should read this because some of their approaches would've made Gareth Gates sound smooth.
I have had some brilliant characters through the doors. I will be talking about some of these weird and wonderful people that seem to gravitate towards the art scene. I want to tell people about these characters partly because after they have left I am left thinking it could be me who has gone mad. If nothing else It may change the way other artists approach to galleries if only by learning what not to do.
The sorry thing is that similar to acting and publishing, the art industry is very unfair in rewarding the top artists with most of the money. This means that for every artist who makes a good living, there are 100 hopefuls. Art though is appreciated in the doing as well as the viewing. Artists often do it as a hobby so I don't mean to paint a bleak picture.
Saying that there are loads of great talented artists who haven't yet made a name for themselves and are just starting out. Thats where we come in.

Halleluja