Triangle of success in the art world
Art and management: A new paradigm for achieving triumph
In the contemporary art world, many artists overlook the application of scientific management principles to achieve their goals. The misconception that success in the art world cannot be attained through management and planning poses a challenge for them. In this piece, we aim to demonstrate the manageability of success in the art world by aligning management principles with artistic activities, introducing a practical model called the ”Triangle of Success.”
By Behdad Najafi
Guest contributor
As depicted in the diagram, the three vertices of this triangle include:
1. Artists' market share (Sales) indicates the artist's success in achieving economic goals through satisfactory sales of their artworks in the market.
2. Artists' position determines how success is achieved in finding a desirable position for the artist throughout their professional career.
3. Personal brand involves creating and introducing a strong and recognizable personal brand of the artist to the market, the artistic community, and the art world as a whole.
The real measure of success in the art world, like other human activities, involve both qualitative and quantitative aspects in achieving predetermined goals. It's important to note that the term "art world" encompasses all markets, communities, organizations, and art stakeholders that an artist may interact with during their professional career. In the Triangle of Success model, achieving balanced and cohesive goals in all three aspects collectively defines the artist's success.
It is crucial that the artist's growth in all three aspects of the triangle is uniform, balanced, and sustainable. Otherwise, the artist may achieve notable but scattered results in the market or artistic communities, without being considered a successful artist in the art world.
After establishing goals in each of the mentioned areas, the next step is to define the path to achieving them. In layman's terms, this path is referred to as a strategy, which is the route that, when followed, allows the artist to transition from current conditions to the ideal state they aspire to achieve.
In the following, we will look closer to each head of the Triangle of Success:
Market share
To focus on market share, it's essential to first identify the artist's goals and ideals in this area. What are the artist's priorities in this domain? Is it creating and selling a larger number of artworks at reasonable prices, or offering a smaller number of pieces at higher prices? Is the goal to reach the general art market customers or concentrate on specific sections? The analysis generally shapes an artist's market share by evaluating the sales trends of their works in specific time periods.
In the art market, artists sell their works through various channels such as solo exhibitions, participation in group shows, showcasing at expos, art fairs, auctions, collaborating with professional art intermediaries, personal sales, and online platforms. Typically, many artists lack scientific planning and specific management for selling their works, treating these activities as routine tasks in the art market and artistic community.
To achieve desired results and find an appropriate market share, the best approach for artists is to employ business planning and strategic marketing management. Crafting an art marketing mix, utilizing the 4P model, becomes crucial:
Product: The artwork available in the art market.
Price: The value of the artwork in the chosen currency.
Place: The channel and location for showcasing artworks, such as galleries, auction houses, virtual spaces, etc.
Promotion: Information dissemination and art promotion.
By defining the first three components, artists can present works that align with market demand in terms of form, content, medium, size, price, and presentation method, increasing the likelihood of achieving their sales and market share goals. During the artwork presentation, utilizing the fourth component and implementing an integrated art marketing communication plan, especially advertising, public relations, and sales promotion strategies, informs the target market and establishes communication with customers.
Artist position
While the categorization of artists and their placement in various positions has always been subject to critique and debate, sometimes utilizing certain models in artistic communities and markets, especially in the realms of planning, management, and art marketing, has proven beneficial and yielded practical results. According to one existing trend, artists generally go through three stages during their professional careers and assign themselves to one of the three positions in the art world. It's noteworthy that age shouldn't be a criterion in this classification; rather, the focus should solely be on artists' work experience, achievements, and creations. For example, an artist might start their career at an older age and fall into the first category, while another young artist, based on their activities and works, quickly qualifies for the second or third category.
This classification includes the following stages:
1. Emerging Artist: During this period, known as the emergence and recognition phase in art communities and markets, artists start to gain visibility among art enthusiasts, gallery owners, collectors, and especially in the media. Even though they haven't attained a distinct and exclusive position yet, their works start receiving positive attention. Many art graduates fall into this category.
2. Mid-Career Artist: By continuing their artistic endeavors seriously and consistently, participating in numerous group exhibitions, holding solo exhibitions, establishing their brand, and gaining recognition nationally and sometimes internationally, especially through appropriate presence in mass media, news outlets, and social networks, artists step into the mid-career stage. At this point, their works find their own market, and most stakeholders in the art community recognize them in their specific position. The works of these artists may even find their way into museums, national collections, and reputable auctions.
3. Established Artist: Continuing the journey towards artistic prominence leads to the rank of established artist. At this stage, the artist and their personal style, as well as their works, are fully recognized nationally and regionally, and they have gained a notable position internationally, enabling them to easily penetrate markets in various countries. The works of these artists have a dedicated and suitable market, and they are relatively easy to buy and sell. Additionally, they may occasionally be seen in museums, collections, and cultural and art institutions. Artists in this group attract the attention of reputable art market players and are regularly featured in significant auctions. Many of them have also authored publications, and they are well-known in the news media, especially in cultural and artistic sections, as well as on social media platforms.
Therefore, to achieve an appropriate position in the art world, as another essential aspect of the success triangle, it's necessary for artists to first identify their current position realistically. After stabilizing their current position, through proper planning, they should strive for sustainable growth and development in their capabilities in this position, gradually ascending to higher positions.
Artist's personal brand
A personal brand can be seen as an identity unique to each artist. In today's competitive art world across all dimensions (market, artistic communities, etc.), having a personal brand and actively working to develop and enhance it is essential for artists.
An artist's personal brand is essentially the result of how others perceive them and what is said about them in their absence. It can be considered the quality of their reputation, which enables them to ascend in society, the market, and ultimately in the art world or gradually decline.
The primary outcome of having a reputable and recognized personal brand in today's art world is differentiation and visibility among the large number of competitors in the market, ensuring they are always remembered. Moreover, it significantly contributes to growth and progress in other aspects of their work and life, as well as aiding in development and growth in two other aspects of success.
There are various ways to create and develop artists' personal brands, with self-awareness being the common first step. Next, artists must precisely determine how they want to be remembered and what qualities they want to be associated with. Overall, investing and dedicating sufficient time and energy to creating and developing a personal brand are important factors for artists' success in both their artistic and personal lives.
All in all, a personal brand is a collection of skills and experiences that shape the artist into who they are today, making them unique.
Developing a personal brand can confer a competitive advantage. Having a recognized and reputable personal brand means that when people in society consider an artist with similar characteristics and works, they immediately recall them.
This also creates new opportunities for artists. Among specific artworks in demand, those created by artists with a strong and recognized personal brand have a higher chance of selling quickly and at higher prices.
Personal branding in art is defined as the process of establishing a recognizable and unique identity for an active individual in the art world, including creating a sustainable and definable image with specific messages. Achieving this requires the individual's strong and planned presence in both the real and virtual worlds.
There are also many psychological reasons for building a personal brand, with one of the most important being building trust. When the general public recognizes an artist's personal brand and can gather sufficient information and understanding about many of their professional, ethical, personality, social, etc., traits, it's natural for them to develop closer relationships and greater trust in them.
By understanding an artist's personal brand, society knows what category of artistic events to expect their presence in and what level of works they will offer to the art market. Additionally, by understanding artists' personal brands, one can discover the areas they excel in and the credible statements they make.
In general, if a professional artist seeks to increase audience confidence, attract opportunities, differentiate themselves, be noticed in today's art market, and overall achieve success and growth, scientifically planned personal branding is one of the ways to achieve this. Therefore, we have chosen it as one of the heads of the success triangle in the art world.
In the digital age, personal branding has gained double importance and urgency, and how artists present themselves in digital spaces is significantly important. With just a few simple clicks on the web and social media platforms, complete information about them, their works, and their professional approaches can be accessed.
Personal branding can help control online discourse about artists and their content, presenting them in the best possible way. In this regard, having well-managed social media pages and a professional website are two very useful methods to achieve this goal. It's worth mentioning that artists' online presence should not only introduce them to the target community but also create added value and increase audience knowledge.
The first step in artists' personal branding in the digital world is organizing and managing their current social media pages. The fame and how artists are presented in the virtual world largely depend on what they publish in these spaces. Therefore, they should refrain from sharing content and images that may negatively impact the audience's perception of them and tarnish their personal brand. Instead, they should always focus on sharing positive content like achievements, images of artworks, artistic events, and similar content.
Artists should have an effective communication strategy for disseminating any information in both the real and virtual worlds. Content published in the media, both online and offline, should contain useful and engaging information for the audience in a way that not only attracts them but also encourages them to constantly follow news related to the artist.
In fact, the target audience should feel the value every time they visit an artist's news sources and consume news and information. The attractiveness of content related to the artist should be such that the audience expresses their desire and popularity through various means such as subscribing to newsletters, joining websites, following social media pages, and so on.
In addition, having a visual identity is also essential in personal branding. Visual identity goes beyond a logo and is a written guideline that expresses how an artist's visual communications with the audience and target market should be comprehensive, complete, and consistent.
In a nutshell, regarding this head of the success triangle, it can be said that an artist without a recognized, strong, and reputable personal brand cannot reach the top steps of success in the art world. However, this does not mean that we should neglect the other two heads of the triangle by excessively focusing on personal branding. In fact, with a suitable and balanced strategy, we can sufficiently pay attention to the growth and development of all aspects and all three heads of the triangle and ascend the steps of success.