Career Development

An intensive four-week course designed to furnish art students, emerging artists, and practicing artists with the skills, connections, and experiences necessary to strengthen their footing in the art world.

About the Program

Strengthen your footing in the art world.

Apply for our fully funded, intensive four-week course designed to furnish art students, emerging artists, and practicing artists with the skills, connections, and experiences necessary to make it in the art world. Students will personally meet a range of art world professionals, establish new connections, and learn first-hand about the general to specific challenges of succeeding in the art world.

Benefits

Seeking gallery representation
Learn how to build an invaluable platform to showcase your work, gain credibility in the art world, and reach a broader audience.
Understanding primary market basics
Learn how to navigate the artist-dealer relationship in order to effectively market your work
Content strategy for artists
Learn how to effectively build and connect with your audience through your digital portfolio, social media, and public speaking.
Writing artists statements
Learn to communicate your creative intentions and perspectives for viewers, curators, and collectors. Write an artist statement and elevator pitch that will build your career.
Photographing your work
Accurately photograph your work for use in promotions and digital media.
Applying for grants and residencies
Discover how to win financial support, dedicated time and space to create, and access to a supportive artistic community.
Show your work to artworld professionals
Review your work with different artworld professionals — including curators, dealers and other artists — who will provide constructive feedback and critique.
And much more!
Receive additional resources, mentorship, and opportunities to amplify your artistic endeavors.

Build Career Connections

Led by renowned artist Marc Dennis, participants in the Career Development Program will work one-on-one with Dennis to identify their individual goals as artists and discuss how to achieve them through on-site visits with leading New York City gallerists and other art world professionals. Hear from various experts who will provide practical career advice and answer your questions to better prepare you for the general to specific challenges of succeeding in the art world.

Instructors

Instructor
Marc Dennis is an American artist known for his hyper-realistic paintings that celebrate the subversive potential of beauty and explore the charged subjects of love and loss. Interested in transformative possibilities, Dennis merges various movements throughout the western art historical canon, with modern tropes to create fresh paintings rich with hype, intrigue, and metaphysical inquiry. Dennis’s works have been included in many solo and group exhibitions, art fairs and museums, and are in numerous prominent public and private collections. He has received grants from Intermedia Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.  
Guest instructor
Respected journalist, popular Instagrammer, and the former longtime editor of ARTnews, Robin Cembalest teaches arts professionals to communicate effectively across all editorial channels. She offers  professional development workshops  in writing, social media, and other  essential skills at art schools,  residencies, museums, professional  organizations, and independently on Eventbrite. An award-winning writer who has published widely in the art and mainstream press, Cembalest is best known today as @rcembalest, handle of her Instagram feed.
Guest Instructor
Judith Prowda has been a member of the Sotheby’s institute of Art Master’s of Art Business Faculty since 2007. She is an attorney, mediator, and arbitrator focused on art law, copyright, entertainment,  and  commercial  law.  She is a founding member of Stropheus Art Law, a collective of art law and business specialists who offer services to the art community. Her book, Visual Arts and the Law: A Handbook for Professionals (2013), is in its second printing. She is Past Chair of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the NYS Bar  Association and Co-Chair of the Fine Arts Committee and Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee.  
Guest instructor
Gustavo Murillo is a photographer specialized in artwork documentation. He is based in New York City, and  holds an MFA in Photography, Video  and Related Media from the School  of Visual Arts in New York. His  photographs have been published in  May,  Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, Mousse Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Mirror, Time Out and The Brooklyn Rail among others.