The Complete Art Business Letter Writer
(A book proposal)
It is hard to understate the amount of time that those who work in art administration spend crafting and drafting emails. “It’s exhausting” —I remember a museum colleague saying once in regards of having to draft dozens of emails a week (both internal and external) for discussion and approval of language and strategy before actually sending them to the recipient. The demand and desire for being professional and clear in communication, as well as the need to be strategic and guide discussions and debates in internal communications to get one’s projects approved and accomplished requires an enormous amount of energy. It is ironic that the art world, a place so opposed to regulation and dependent of word of mouth and informal backroom communication and deal-making, depends so much on email to get things done. It is perhaps an acceptable middle ground where commitments can still be worth something but not have the legal binding of a signed contract.
A few years ago I started becoming interested in business letter writing. I discovered in family papers that my great-grandfather had used a business letter writer (i.e., a book) as reference for writing business letters in English — as he became one of the first importers and salesmen of Underwood typewriters in Mexico. Around the turn of the century business letters writers were popular. They provided people with appropriate formats of delivery and structures for conducting mostly formal communication.
I had previously written a social etiquette manual for the art world, but the exploration of formal correspondence felt like an unexplored direction to research (and those who know me know that I am very attracted to instructional books and manuals). So I started planning an art business letter writer. But the project got lost in one of my external hard drives and did not emerge until a few days ago by chance while I was looking for something else.
I thus present here a draft proposal for a book (unlikely to be published), with a few additions a draft preface and a suggested index (all, by the way, based on real-life scenarios and a few contemporary additions to better reflect our world in 2021).
The Art Business Letter Writer
Containing
Complete and Full Directions for Every Conceivable Art Business Transaction, together with Complete Guidelines of Negotiations, Requests, Subtle Complaints, and Cunning Insults, to which is Added a Comprehensive Table of Synonyms and Dictionary of Non-Professional Types.
PREFACE
When at the request of many arts professionals I undertook the development of this work I was not unaware of the great lack of information available for those who need to communicate properly with their coworkers, funders, patrons, and, in the case of artists, any other individual who may at some point support their career. My goal has been to create this book that helps guide the student to successfully convey their needs, concerns, and pretensions to those they do business with.
Given the quick pace through which the art profession has expanded in the world of business and the way in which a successful career in the visual arts is dependent on the negotiation skills of the individual, I decided to inspire this book in the 19th century letter writers, which existed as ready references for those who had difficulty communicating in the written form.
A decade or so ago I noticed that social etiquette manuals had a great deal to teach those who want to pursue a career in the art world. Similarly, I have also observed that business letter formats and guidelines, if adopted, would be helpful to arts professionals, who are usually not known for their literary skills (and might have even decided to pursue the visual arts because they didn’t want words to dominate their lives).
Letter writers used to be widely used in business colleges by those preparing toward a mercantile life. In the 21st century, writing emails (and even texts) is the primary form of choice for artists who communicate with prospective curators, funders, collectors, and other potential supporters of their work, and becoming proficient on written forms of communication can determine the ultimate success or failure in their careers.
I hope that the phraseology and etiquette presented in these examples will be of use to the reader.
PH
[DRAFT INDEX]
1. Letter to an art student who is asking for the 20th recommendation letter
2. Letter to a university administrator asking an artist to fly across the country to work as visiting artist for $100
3. Letter to a collector who is also a Trump supporter
4. Letter to a collector who is asking an artist to donate his shoes to his personal collection
5. Letter to a magazine editor who is asking for unpaid contributions and yet is charging subscriptions to his readers
6. Letter to a curator who disinvited an artist to an exhibition
7. Letter to an artist who agreed to do a talk, didn’t prepare, and publicly chastised the organizer for not knowing why he was invited
8. Letter to a collector who doesn’t understand the work they bought
9. Letter to the same collector who now understands the work and now wants to sell it at auction
10. Letter to an artist who is convinced that he started the art world
11. Letter to an art critic who wrote a review of an exhibition that he did not go to view in person
12. Letter to an art critic who is addicted to social media
13. Letter to a foundation director who retired the funding of a museum because they did not cancel the exhibition of her ex-boyfriend
14. Letter to a museum’s board of trustees who “can’t find enough” trustees of color to recruit for their board
15. Letter to a curator inviting an indigenous artist to do an ethnic-specific installation
16. Letter to a fundraiser who is inviting an artist to contribute an artwork for a benefit for an organization that has always declined to include the artist in any exhibition
17. Letter to an artist who has made a career out of criticizing other artists
18. Letter to a celebrity turned artist who received a scathing review by Roberta Smith and is hurting
19. Letter to a university who asked an artist to lecture for free since it would be in Zoom anyway and they had “no budget”
20. Letter to an arts organization that is seeking funding to do a social practice exhibition but don’t really know what social practice actually is
20. Letter from an artist to a more famous artist who made a suspiciously similar piece to one made by the former
21. Letter to a vanity gallery that is inviting an artist to exhibit their work with them in exchange of 8000 Euro
22. Letter to an artist who has never said any phrase without using the first person
[more categories to follow]