| Mixed Greens started in 1999 as the vision of a passionate collector, Paige West. Paige was tired of people only being able to name dead artists. She wanted to give living artists, and, in particular, under-recognized artists, a platform. She started through documentary film and then, as the Internet took off, created the mixedgreens.com Web site. Over time and with the help of our artists, we have evolved into a more traditional gallery with a physical space in Chelsea. We are dedicated to bringing the work to new collectors, helping our artists realize their projects, and having a more transparent model than other traditional gallery spaces. | 
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Leah Oates talks to Heather Darcy Bhandari, a curator at Mixed Greens.
Rob Conger, installation view of exhibition Feeling Lucky, February to March 2008. Courtesy of Mixed Greens.Leah Oates: Your background is in art history and you’re also a painter. How has being an artist affected your focus as a curator and arts manager?
Heather Darcy Bhandari: I went to college with the intention of being an artist, but I wasn’t ready to narrow my focus by choosing an art school. Instead, I chose a classic liberal arts education and I majored in both studio art and anthropology.
After college, I wanted to concentrate on only making art, so I got an MFA in painting. I considered my MFA an opportunity to learn whether or not I was dedicated enough to become a professional artist. I loved making work, but I discovered that my skills and interests were better suited to the world outside the studio.
My own personal struggle and ultimate choice to stop making art gives me some insight into what it’s like to be an artist. I sat through critiques, studio visits, and portfolio reviews. Now that I’m on the other side of those situations, I think I’m a little more sensitive to the issues at hand, or at least I try to be! In most cases, I can envision how something was made, so that gives me a deeper understanding of the time and energy it took to make something that may appear effortless. On the flip side, this makes me a bit tougher on artists sliding by without a rigorous practice. I have incredible admiration for the artists I work with. I know their dedication and ambition are special.LO: You are the curator at Mixed Greens, which aims to connect emerging artists and new collectors. How was Mixed Greens formed? How has it progressed, and how is the future looking?
HDB: Mixed Greens started in 1999 as the vision of a passionate collector, Paige West. Paige was tired of people only being able to name dead artists. She wanted to give living artists, and, in particular, under-recognized artists, a platform. She started through documentary film and then, as the Internet took off, created the mixedgreens.com Web site.
Over time and with the help of our artists, we have evolved into a more traditional gallery with a physical space in Chelsea. We are dedicated to bringing the work to new collectors, helping our artists realize their projects, and having a more transparent model than other traditional gallery spaces. At Mixed Greens, we work with all kinds of collectors, from people who have just decided they want to live with art and might buy a drawing for $500, to people with established collections who are commissioning large pieces.
Although our relationship with artists is fairly traditional, we do try to push the boundaries of what a gallery can do. We send an educational/commercial catalog to thousands of people twice a year, and we list our prices in the gallery and on the Web site. While this may seem tacky to some, it illustrates our dedication to making the art-buying process accessible and understandable. All the while, our very top priority is to nurture and grow our artists through exhibitions and help them realize major, ambitious works.
The future will be much the same. As our artists grow and attain a higher level of critical success, we will grow with them. Of course, we’ll always be committed to emerging talent even as our original artists become widely known.LO: You are writing a book for artists with the working title “ART/WORK: A Professional Guide For Visual Artists.” This book aims to prepare artists for the professional art world and gives them business advice, which is very important for artists to know. Surprisingly in many art schools this information is not covered. Why is this and what are your hopes and aims for “ART/WORK?”
HDB: I can understand why some people are hesitant to talk about business in an art program—the base of any artist’s career is the work itself and that does not need to be informed by the rules of law or business. However, once the work is ready to leave the studio, every artist needs to know how the art world operates. After interactions with hundreds of art students, emerging and established artists, I’ve learned that there is a lack of basic knowledge about the gallery system and how curators make their decisions. There is no resource that fully explains the basics of being an artist—from packing work for shipping to deciding whether your work belongs in a commercial gallery.
About a year ago, a friend of mine, Jonathan Melber, was working as an arts lawyer and volunteering on a case for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in New York. He came to me, asking why a lot of artists were so confused about the business of art. After a long discussion, we set out to write a book that outlined how the art world works. To make the book more exciting, we’ve spent the last six months interviewing over 70 gallery owners, curators, artists, residency coordinators, and other art-world professionals to collect their advice and experiences. It’s been fascinating!
Visual artists do not have managers or agents, so they have to wear many hats throughout their careers. I don’t think business should ever be an artist’s focus. But I think it is important for artists to realize they are entrepreneurs and they need to take responsibility for their work. This does not mean compromising their integrity. In fact, it is just the opposite. Artists need to take control of the integrity of their work. We hope this book will take some of the guesswork out of navigating one’s career in the art world.
LO: For “ART/WORK” you spoke with many artists, curators, and gallery owners. What type of common threads ran through the interviews? What were some of the most surprising and predictable things people mentioned?
HDB: The art world is a conglomeration of unique and interesting personalities. While galleries can look like unfeeling machines of commerce, they are nothing more or less than the people who run them. It was fascinating to talk to everyone, to hear how various people got into their current positions, about galleries’ relationships to artists, museum curators’ collaborations with artists, and how the critics choose what to review.
What we found interesting was how confident people were in their business practices even though many readily admitted they had no benchmarks. Gallery owners, in particular, were quite proud of their systems but expressed interest in reading the book to see how other people do things.
There is a surprising lack of transparency when it comes to artists’ relationships with dealers, curators, collectors and the press. Most of the artists we spoke to only learned how to function through trial and error. We realized that behind all the mystery, there were many conventions and unwritten rules. We’re not trying to radically change the system, although such clarity may be radical to some. Instead, we are trying to make things smoother and clearer so artists can spend more time in the studio, or executing a show, instead of wondering how to fill out a consignment form, or who is going to pay for framing.
Gallerists and curators from L.A. to Houston to Chicago to New York all emphasized the importance of trust between an artist and an institution, and they all had expectations of that relationship whether they wrote it down or not. The most predictable common practice was, of course, the 50/50 split artists have with galleries. You’ll have to read the book to find out the more unexpected discoveries!
LO: You have worked at Sonnebend Gallery and at Lehmann Maupin, which are two respected galleries in NYC. What is it like to work within an established gallery with famous artists? What did you learn that you could utilize with emerging artists at Mixed Greens?
HDB: When I first interned at Sonnabend, right after finishing my MFA, I was in awe of the artists on their roster. I nearly lost my breath when Barry Le Va came to the gallery one day, just to chitchat with the director. Gilbert and George and Hiroshi Sugimoto were like Hollywood celebrities to me. Inevitably, this wore off and I was able to maintain my cool, but I was thrilled to be a part of a world where people have affected art history, social change, and the way we all see the world.
At Lehmann Maupin, a few of the artists were younger and a bit less established at the time. Their careers have grown enormously in the decade since I left. This gave me a taste of what it is like to really help an artist grow and achieve success. I realized that the part of the job I liked best was helping artists advance their careers. I decided that I wanted to help curate exhibitions, realize projects, and do more studio visits.
Sonnabend and Lehmann Maupin gave me the background so I could be confident in my business decisions. I quickly learned what was expected of the gallery/artist relationship and who the significant players were on the museum/collector/business side.
LO: Who are the artists you are working with as a curator, and what shows do you have coming up?
HDB: Obviously, I work with all the Mixed Greens artists and have a great time helping them put together their solo shows each month. Our April/May show is an amazing abstract painter, Rob Nadeau, and Christina Mazzalupo’s hilarious new drawings will be up in June. Although I love curating outside exhibitions, I don’t have any non-Mixed Greens shows coming up in the near future. A former colleague, Erin Sircy, and I have been working on a show titled Shape Shifters that will hopefully be realized in the next year. Currently, I am swamped with the book and the regular Mixed Greens schedule.
That being said, I am getting to know new artists through outside juried exhibitions, the NYFA doctoral program, a portfolio review at RISD and our two upcoming group shows at Mixed Greens.
At the gallery, we use the summer group show as a way to include artists we really like into our program. I will get to work with Ken Fandell, Sun Kwak, Soyeon Cho, and Thomas Doyle on our June show, Synthetic Supernova. Then, over the summer, I will have the opportunity to work with ten artists who all use paper to create amazing sculptural works. We found many of these artists through slide registries like Artists Space and Nurture Art, studio visits to Smack Mellon, and through submissions to the gallery. I love having the opportunity to include work by unrepresented artists.
LO: Who are your favorite well-known artists and why?
HDB: I have a list of many, many artists who I respect a great deal, or have influenced me in one way or another. While I was making work, I was obsessed with Eva Hesse, Rachel Whiteread, Yayoi Kusama, Ernesto Neto, Petah Coyne, Cathy de Monchaux, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and other artists who dealt with the body and space in a way that I found fascinating and inspiring.
Now, some of my favorite artists are the Mixed Greens artists, of course: Do-Ho Suh, Olafur Eliasson, Jeppe Hein, Doug Aitken, Ian Burns, Uta Barth, and a long list of others who use light, sound, and materials to offer you a dream-like poetic vision. Many of them work with memory to reshape the viewer’s perspective.
LO: What are the elements that make art great?
HDB: Art is not made in a vacuum. I think great art connects with people on a number of levels. It connects with the viewer both visually and conceptually. The best art stands the test of time because it touches on basic emotions and perceptions that people recognize across cultures. Personally, I love art that is purposefully crafted and socially conscious.
LO: What projects do you have coming up in 2008 and 2009?
HDB: This next year is going to be a busy one! I’m very excited about my involvement in Nurture Art, a non-profit organization in Brooklyn that is devoted to giving opportunities to unrepresented artists. I’m helping to organize their benefit that will take place on October 27 at James Cohan Gallery. My book with Jonathan Melber is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2009, and I’m hoping to realize a non-Mixed Greens show with Erin Sircy. In addition, I will continue to meet new artists and discover new art through juried shows, portfolio reviews, and studio visits. I’m especially looking forward to my stay at Art Omi this summer.
