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Juliètte Jongma

Gallery owner in AmsterdamBe sure that your work is visible. Initiate your own exhibitions with, for example, a group of fellow students (united, you are strong). Exhibitions of this kind are perfect occasions to approach gallery owners, curators and art critics, to invite them to look at your work. (Consider, for example, the Young British Artists, who jointly organized exciting exhibitions that were bursting with energy. Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin even opened their own shops in empty buildings. In the Netherlands, there was the Group of Eight, photographers from the academy in the Hague, who admired and collectively promoted one another in various exhibitions. Try to get into a graduate programme in the Netherlands or elsewhere. Check out the Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) website to see what residencies are available. It may be early days yet, but it is best to know what is out there. Try to identify the differences between the programmes of the galleries and museums and judge where your work would best fit in. Go to the openings! See the gallery shows in person. A gallery owner will always be more interested in looking at your work if they have seen you in their gallery. By being at the openings, you meet people in the art world and gradually build up your network. People will be quicker to think of you and your work if they have recently met you. Most of all, continue producing your work. Try to work according to a plan. Be inventive. Recognize the opportunities and the possibilities and believe in your work and its right to exist.

Els van Odijk

Director of the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam Do not send your portfolio to galleries, curators or museums without being asked. Make friends with people from different backgrounds and professions within your own generation. Decide what you want to participate in as an artist: in other words, do not just say yes to everything. Building a career is a marathon, not a sprint. Be sure to see lots of exhibitions and stay well informed. Be open to studio visits. Go out and work as an assistant to artists or at art institutions. Get together with others to set up an exhibition location or artists’ initiative, but do not get too tied up in it for too long. (These comments were made by those present at a small, informal dinner at the Rijksakademie.)

Jennifer Allen

Art critic in BerlinObviously, there is no easy formula for moving from studies at an art academy to a career as a professional artist. Even the best plans can go awry. I did studies in comparative literature, only to end up as an art critic; some artists study painting, only to end up doing performance art. Like the old division between different media, the old division between education and career does not seem to make much sense anymore, especially since critics, collectors, curators and gallerists have long been haunting the halls of academies in search of new talent. Moreover, contemporary art fuses the professional sphere with the social sphere; most people are working at parties, not in offices. While networking can play a role in driving a career, a beginning artist should realize that she, too, can make her very own networks (and parties and offices) with other colleagues, whatever their age, practice and generation. There is nothing like sending out your own invitations – and making your own projects with like-minded souls – instead of waiting for invitations from others or running after them with a CV. Collective artist initiatives remain significant, especially for criticism, since they can change not only how art looks, but also how art is institutionalized, exhibited and sold (and perhaps other destinies). I am not calling for a return to collective historical movements – like another Gruppe ZERO or any other group – but I am always interested in what artists do on their own, without curators, institutions, gallerists, collectors and academies. Since the professional and the social are so closely linked in contemporary art and even culture, collective artist initiatives and popular cultural practises can reflect new demands on life while creating new possibilities. Consider how going to raves helped a whole generation to participate in the anti-globalization movement, which demands a similar collective instant mobility. In short, your life may be a central part of your art, even if your art is not at all autobiographical. While life tends to seep into collective artist initiatives – through the necessary logistics of timing, planning and financing a group project – it is also important to maintain a focus on your own oeuvre. To keep trying to answer the question that you yourself are formulating with your work. The question may be simple or complex – ‘What happens to a sculpture turned upside-down?’ or ‘What is the relation between ink, paper and printed money in a colonial empire and a global economy?’ – but there is a richness in asking a question over and over again, without ever being satisfied with the results and without letting money be the answer to everything. Indeed, the answers can often look very different over the years, but focus tends to make the answers more precise. You know you are on the right track when your latest effort makes your earliest works seem at once more sloppy and more valuable.

Charles Esche

Director of Van Abbemuseum, EindhovenSome simple, subjective advice if you want to find a way to the art world’s heart and would like to live happily in it afterwards: Turn on the charm, cultivate a sense of mission, know some subjects extraordinarily well, tell a good tale, show interest in the world around you and especially its media representations, oscillate widely between modesty and hubris, know where you come from and let on that you know where you are going, be tough but tender, question the givens, doubt universalism but moderate the uniqueness of the local, promote your friends. Listen to people you respect and be generous to your enemies, learn who’s who in the art world but don’t obsess about it publicly. Enjoy being an artist, do what you want given the time, resources and your capacities, and finally, make work you like yourself, because if you are successful, you may be making it for quite some time.

Fons Welters

Gallery owner in AmsterdamConcentrate on producing good work. Then take the time to get it out there. It is important to see a lot of art in order to know what it is that you are relating to. Do not just cruise the galleries with your portfolio. Take a good look at what level your work is in and in which gallery your work would be best suited. When you have the opportunity to show your work, take a lot of time to prepare the presentation. Be receptive to artists’ initiatives, but do not get bogged down in them. What is most important is that you must always have faith in yourself and not let yourself be influenced by others’ success. Believe in your own abilities.

Lex ter Braak

Director Fonds BKVBI do not believe there is a general recipe that can advance the career of an artist. An artist makes work, not a career (that is for others to do). We already know everything that contributes to the success of the work, but it is not something that can be completely manipulated or programmed. What is important is that the artist is able to reflect on a sustainable, artistic and intellectually rich context. It is about sticking to it, pushing forward, in my opinion, and character is as important as talent. Most important of all is the artist’s faith in himself – not as a form of blind, big-headedness or self-satisfaction, but as an indestructible necessity.

Linda van Deursen

Graphic designer, AmsterdamConsult the masters and read the following, in any order:To do:– Herzog on Herzog, Paul Cronin (editor)- Mr. Fluxus: A Collective Portrait of George Maciunas 1931-1978, Emmett Williams (editor)- Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality, Sybil Moholy-Nagy- Leave Any Information at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, Ed Ruscha (author), Alexandra Schwartz (editor)- Willem Sandberg, portret van een kunstenaar, Ank Leeuw Marcar (not translated)- Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin, Lawrence Weschler- My Last Sigh: The Autobiography of Luis Buñuel, Luis Buñuel- Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History: The Story of the Legendary Photo Agency, Russell Miller- A Passion for Films, Henri Langlois and the Cinematheque, Richard Roud- Thanks for Coming, Jim Haynes,and recently:- Just Kids, Patti SmithNot to do:Do not settle for less.

Dominic van den Boogerd

Director of De Ateliers, AmsterdamYour studies behind you, the whole world in front of you, and all you have is a vague idea of what being an artist entails. How can you develop your work, strengthen it, make it deeper? How do you place yourself in the current reality of international developments? Beginning artists find their own answers to such questions during a two-year working period at a graduate institute, obviously by preference De Ateliers in Amsterdam. That gives time, space, the attention of renowned artists and intensive contact with fellow artists. A graduate institute provides the bridge to cross the gulf between studying and a professional practice as an artist.

Marc Bijl

Artist in BerlinTHE SECRET OF SUCCESThe word success comes from successor, someone who follows. Whatever you do must be something that can be followed, by your descendents or your disciples or those who love your work. They have to be gripped by your work and therefore prepared to share in it, to show it again and again or promote it in one way or another. You have to know what is going on around you, offer gifts in the form of your time, attention, catalogues, willingness to think along with others and be receptive to suggestions and (questionable) exhibitions, almost to the point of opportunism. Your art has to be strong enough to handle it, and if it is not, then you will have learned that, too. You cannot be too reclusive or too self-assured, as if a cramped hanging on to a theme or specific use of material were the equivalent of a strong concept and conviction. The opposite often works better: making people, friends and enemies, a part of what you are striving to achieve. In other words, being an artist is a solo endeavour, but the more people you involve in it, the more it is discussed and thought about. More feedback is good. It would be great if the better galleries see your work and pick it up, but until that happens, it is better to connect with other partners in crime, and there, you do not have to be all that selective. Anyone can mean something for you. At every level, there are people who know what they are doing and have knowledge that can help you achieve your goal (success?) and artistic development (means?). You must have a very strong general concept, one with which you can advance over the years without restricting yourself, something that can grow along with you.Being social, mixing with fellow artists is a prerequisite, because you still have to belong to a movement or – better yet – your own movement (with fellow artists). All of that takes time, so it is better to be friends with your associates, all with your ultimate, blooming artistic practice in the back of your mind. This also has to generate the required synergy and money without a gallery or curator: let them come discover you. Avoid extra jobs that take up too much of your time. Certainly in the Netherlands, it has to be possible to find grants to create a period of time in which you can focus exclusively on your activities as an artist. Use your money for that, not on a trip around the world. Ultimately, these efforts pay off, and then you can still travel around the world. It is a question of mentality. You sometimes have to make decisions, take action, run risks. It is still a perpetual chain of failed projects and attempts, until, somewhere along the way, there is more recognition and a clear structure on the path you are taking. In the meantime, you come across curators, galleries and the people who see your efforts. GOOD LUCK!