Self Assembly is a talks programme

providing practical advice and case studies on different aspects of a visual artist's or craftsperson's career. Bookings open for series of talks on pricing your work.

This roaming talks programme, aiming to visit as wide a range and geographic spread of London's art organisations as possible, provides practical insight into different elements of an artists practice.  Each talk comprises a general introduction to the topic in hand and a case study, presented by a practising artist, using their career as inspiration.  Each talk is also recorded and made available on this page for the benefit of artists and craftspeople anywhere in the world.

For the latest information on when booking for Self Assembly seminars becomes available, join our e-letter mailing list, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Self Assembly - Pricing your work mini series
Venue: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4LA

How do you set a sustainable pricing level for your work? How can you resolve the need to earn money from selling your work, but set your prices at a level where people want to buy? How much should your prices rise, and how quickly? What's a good level of pricing for recent graduates to start at? Can you negotiate a price for your work, and how do you do this?

Pricing your work correctly is crucial, and difficult territory to navigate, particularly in a recession. As with so many parts of a visual arts or crafts practice, there are no hard and fast rules on how to set a price for a specific piece: instead, you need to consider the context in which a piece is being sold, who you are selling it to, what the market can sustain, your previous experience and past sales.

Artquest's popular Self Assembly series, looking at the practical elements of an artistic practice, continues from September to November 2010 with a four-part mini series on pricing your work, looking at both general strategies for pricing and at the media which can be hardest to set a price for: film and video, installation and performance.

These sessions will provide you with the general information you need to create a pricing structure for your work, and equip you with the knowledge you need about how pricing works in the art world. The seminars will be led by artists and industry professionals experienced with pricing in their fields.

Please note that individual advice on pricing specific pieces of work will not be possible. The seminars will instead provide you with ideas and tips on pricing your own work, helping you understand the context in which work is sold and how pricing works in different markets.

To book a place at any of these sessions, please email Simona Dell'Agli stating which session/s you are interested in and your contact address in London. Places are only available to London-based visual artists or craftspeople (find out why read more about Artquest). Each session costs £3, payable at the event.

The Basics of Pricing

with Medeia Cohan-Petrolino, Curator, University of the Arts London

Date: Thursday 16 September 2010, 6.30 - 8.00pm

Venue: Conway Hall, Brockway Room 

Medeia Cohan-Petrolino is Curator for the University of the Arts London where she runs the University's unique Emerging Artist Programme. Through this innovative scheme, Medeia programmes and curates an eclectic variety of exhibitions in the University's Arts Gallery, manages the University's 600 plus piece collection, advises some of the UK's top collectors through the Artist and Collectors Exchange and runs the University's annual best of the degree show exhibition, Future Map. Medeia's role at the University allows her to keep her fingers on the pulse of the rising stars of the emerging art and design scened in London and allows her to support over 200 alumni artists per year, in a variety of ways.

Medeia will talk about some general but key principles to consider when pricing your artwork and also look at approaches and considerations when pricing editions.

Pricing Film and Video
(Speaker TBC)

Date: Wednesday 29 September, 6.30 - 8.00pm

Venue: Conway Hall, Bertrand Russell Room

This talk will look at the specific challenges of setting prices for film and video art, including thinking about how to edition this kind of work.

  

Pricing Installation
with Bea de Souza, from The Agency Gallery

Date: Wednesday 27 October, 6.30 - 8.00pm
Venue: Conway Hall, Bertrand Russell Room

Bea de Souza is the founder / director of the Agency Gallery in London, established since 1996. The Agency is a commercial gallery, internationally renowned for showcasing emerging and mid career artists with a special focus on conceptual art and inter-media-experimentation from the 90's onwards. With an academic background in Art History and Cultural Theory, Bea de Souza has contributed to a number of catalogues as well as lecturing on conceptual art and capitalism. She is also one of the co-founders of Projeckt, a non-profit curating platform for the creation of interactive works using live digital broadcasting. She actively advises international private and public collections, such as the Tate archive and Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium and supports British curating abroad.

Drawing on her extensive experience of selling and editioning installation art, Bea will be looking at how pricing structures work for this medium.

Pricing Performance
with Laura Eldret, from CollectingLiveArt

Date: Monday 8 November, 6.30 - 8.00pm
Venue: Conway Hall, Bertrand Russell Room

CollectingLiveArt is a collaborative project between art historian/curator Teresa Calonje and artist/curator Laura Eldret, exploring issues and opportunities of collecting, preserving and re-producing live artworks. Driven by a want to ensure a legacy of ephemeral works within public and private art collections, they aim to raise the debate and establish a new framework for artists and collectors to engage with.

Laura Eldret is an artist and curator. She has a disparate artistic practice that includes performance, sculpture, installation, interventions and drawing. Recent projects include ‘Poignancy Passing Muster', V22 at Wharf Road, London; ‘Ripe for Revisiting on a Daily Basis', 52 Meters, London; Monument performed at Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes, France; and Magic Order, a group exhibition in a car, at Art Car Boot , Big Chill 2009. She is currently developing several projects including A HA HA at Jerwood Project Space in October 2009. As a freelance curator she has worked for many art organizations, including Contemporary Art Society and Arts Unwrapped, she is also co-founder of the CollectingLiveArt campaign; co-curating Performance at Zoo Art Fair, 2008, London and presenting Conversations, at Liste, Basel, 2009.

Performance art is perhaps one of the most difficult media to sell, price or collect: Laura will be looking at how performance can be collected and priced.

 

Each session includes an introduction to Artquest and a general introduction to the topic by Artquest staff.  If you would like to suggest a topic for Self Assembly, please email Russell Martin with your comments.

  

Past Self Assembly Seminars:  

  

Websites and Social Networks

Thursday 22 July 2010 at Conway Hall

Just how important is it for artists to have a website? What are the alternatives? Do you tweet? Is Facebook a valuable medium for promoting your work or just a drain on your time?  Artist Jessica Voorsanger talked about how her website and the internet have created opportunities for her and her practice.

Working as an Artist Educator  

Friday 7th May 2010 at Matt Roberts Arts 

Session looked at approaches to working as an artist educator, with a presentation by artist and educator Cath Hawes. In association with Matt Robert's Open Forum 2010.   

Artists Rates of Pay

Monday 16 November 2009 at London Printworks Trust

Covering artists rates of pay, including a presentation by practicing visual artist and events organiser Alex Julyan.

Contracts

Monday 28 September 2009 at Kew Studios

Focussed on contracts for artists and included a presentation by solicitor Giles Dixon, director of the Contracts Store.

Peer mentoring and support

Saturday 20 June 2009 at Camden Arts Centre

Presentations on peer mentoring and support, including a presentation by William Clifford, who took part in Artquest's 2008 Forum project.

Self Promotion

Monday 6 April 2009 at London Print Studio

Looking at self promotion for artists, including case studies by artist Gordon Cheung.

Funding

Thursday 19 February 2009 at the Hackney Wick Community Training Centre

Focussing on different forms of funding artistic projects and practice.  Curator Hannah Liley presented case studies from her own curatorial practice and gave practical advice on approaching and securing funding.

I found the talk extremely interesting and helpful.  Clearly a lot of thought had gone in to presenting us with just the right sort of information. ... It was exactly what was wanted, very well thought out and clearly presented.  It will certainly transform my own approach to making applications for funding. 

It has given me plenty of sources and impetus to look for funding for future projects.

To find out when future talks are taking place, join our e-letter mailing list, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.