Labels For Artists

by Babs Rappleye (aka Tucker Neel)

Artillery Magazine, Aug./Sept. 2021.

Dear Babs, Certain grants, contests, programs, and such ask me to define myself as an “emerging” or “established” artist. How does one decide which label fits?

—Dick in Del Mar

Dear Dick,

Other fields have terms for newbies. Professional baseball players—and cops—are rookies; recently credentialed doctors are residents, and fresh-faced lawyers are associates. However, unlike these professions, the art world’s term “emerging” isn’t exactly institutionally prescribed; one must claim it for oneself.

Typically an emerging artist is someone who is just beginning a career. A good example is an artist who recently graduated from school, usually an MFA program. They typically have not had a solo show, are not represented by a gallery, and are generally unknown to the art world they seek to inhabit. There’s a kind of freedom to being an “emerging” artist in that you are not tied to a set body of work; no one expects you to make anything in particular. The reason nonprofits, curators, galleries and museums ask for you to label yourself as “emerging” when applying for scholarships, juried exhibitions and other opportunities is because they are looking for new talent, fresh ideas and unseen work. Unfortunately, “emerging” is also code for “younger” artist, though it’s certainly possible for artists to “emerge” at an older age.

On the other hand, “established” artists have staked out a claim to their little part of the art world. They have exhibited their work extensively—hopefully including museum exhibitions—in solo and group shows organized by influential curators, have sold work to known collectors and/or institutions, had their work covered by recognized critics, and are generally “known” for making the work they make. It’s unclear if an “established” artist can fall so far out of the spotlight that they once again become an “emerging” artist; once you’re out, you’re out. Perhaps the opposite of “emerging” in this sense is “submerging,” an artist who finds themselves sinking further and further into professional obscurity.

One issue with these terms is they imply that the goal is to be “established.” But isn’t it the job of young upstarts to upend the establishment? No matter where you are in your career, it’s more productive to consider yourself constantly “emerging.” Doing so inoculates against the pressure to have a one-track career; it’s okay to meander in and out of notoriety, fad and fame. Instead, make your own labels and work along a path you chart for yourself.