How to Get Hung: A Practical Guide for Emerging Artists [Paperback]

Molly Barnes (Author), Pat Hilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1994

In this accessible, easy-to-read, detailed guide for artists, students, and aspiring art professionals, Molly Barnes takes the mystique out of "how to hung". Readers learn how to present their work and themselves to the professional art world.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This unusual title refers to the process by which artists obtain gallery space in which to exhibit and sell their works. Barnes is an experienced gallery owner who has represented a number of well-known artists. In this book, aimed primarily at students and other young artists, she gives tips for dealing with art professionals, preparing and hanging a show and achieving success in the art world. The text is chatty, informal, and sprinkled with anecdotes about art personalities. As a career guide, the book has some interesting insights, but it doesn't have the solid information that books like A Writer's Market give their audiences. It emphasizes public relations and appearances but has very little about business practice-finance, insurace, legal advice, etc. Not an essential purchase for any type of library.
Constance Ashmore Fairchild, Urbana, Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gallery owner and art critic Barnes is refreshingly free of pretension and preciousness in this let's-get-real guide for students and artists hoping to sell their work. Much as she understands the spiritual and aesthetic forces that motivate artists, she sticks to practical matters. One of her first suggestions is that anyone planning on showing their work to gallery owners must have at least a dozen pieces related by theme, media, or scale. Gallery owners must be wooed, Barnes declares, and, as in any courtship, everything counts, from your appearance--remember this is a visual world: you'd better look good, no, make that interesting--to your ability to speak intelligently yet succinctly about your themes and approach to materials. Barnes offers plenty of sane and sensible guidelines for preparing for studio visits, evaluating agreements with galleries, selecting work for shows, and helping with installation and promotion. Her efficiency and feistiness make it all seem possible, which is what aspiring artists really want to hear. Donna Seaman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Journey Editions; 1st edition (November 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188520308X
• ISBN-13: 978-1885203083
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,267,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There are far better books than this one on the market., November 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Get Hung: A Practical Guide for Emerging Artists (Paperback)

Barnes reduces the complexities of developing a career as a fine artist to short, opinionated paragraphs under multiple headings. It sounds condescending and dictorial. Some of the bad advice she gives includes suggesting you move to New York; courting gallery owners like her with flowers, limos, lunch, or buying art from her shows. If you are looking for a quick overview of the artist-gallery relationship from this particular dealer's perspective, you'll find that information here, but I suggest you try a worthy publication like Cay Lang's Taking The Leap or Carol Michels' How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You could have hung... yourself., July 15, 2001

By 

The Artist "The Artist" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Get Hung: A Practical Guide for Emerging Artists (Paperback)

From all the great AND SUCCESSFUL artists I have learned, the most important message that is conveyed to me by them essentially is "be yourself". This book suggests otherwise. Here are some insights from the book to "get hung":

- Your look: The book suggests the artists go for an "art look", experiment new looks until "your style will emerge".

- Your location: Moving to New York.

- Your source of finance (to support your art endeaver): marry rich, work in an art-related occupation (not bad, but can we all do this?)

- etc... I dropped the book at the end of chapter 2, after the suggestion of "moving to New York".

All in all, the book consists of short examples of people who succeeded in selling their art to prove the author's points. At the end of each chapter, a list of bullet points is shown to recap. Valuable points presented in the book, such as networking, open-minded to critique, etc... are too basic for any discipline when it comes to marketing. Unfortunately, these cannot save the rest of the book.

In my opinion, this book is NOT for a mature and responsible artist audience who has to break their back working odd jobs, yet still obsesses about art and making art.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars In a word: lame., August 19, 2002

By 

Karl Janssen (Olathe, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Get Hung: A Practical Guide for Emerging Artists (Paperback)

If you take out all the name-dropping and pointless anecdotes, there isn't much left to this book. What little advice it contains on the subject of succeeding as an artist seems to fall under the heading of common sense. (If you want to be a famous artist, move to New York, go to lots of galleries, talk to lots of people. It helps to look nice, and dating a famous artist doesn't hurt either. Do we really need an expert to tell us these things?) What little practical advice there is on subjects like having slides made of your work or sending out press releases is so general that it is of little use. These subjects are covered much better in lots of other books, Art Marketing 101 by Constance Smith and How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist by Caroll Michels to name a couple. One bit of advice from the author made me laugh out loud. She stresses the importance of proofreading a press release before you send it out (good idea!), yet it is obvious that this book was not proofread. There are so many typographical, spelling, and/or grammatical errors that at times I felt as if I were grading a high school term paper.