About the Workshop
Do you have a great idea for an exhibition and are seeking a space and funding? Are you interested in advocating for yourself as an artist or curator and don’t know where to start? This workshop is for you. Led by local artists MG Bernard and Max Kauffman, you build the skills and knowledge you need to network effectively, build relationships, and submit proposals for exhibitions.
Come prepared with questions, and ready to engage! All materials and handouts will be provided.
The following topics will be covered in this workshop:
Networking
Preparing an artist or curatorial proposal
Preparing a 30 second pitch on your arts practice or curatorial vision
Cold calls/emails
What galleries look for in artists and curators
Finding a space: alternative options/getting creative
Resources for finding funds
This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required to attend!
About the Workshop Series
Building off of our annual curatorial program, Rough Gems, Union Hall will support even more emerging curators and artists in the Denver area, through a free monthly series, which will explore real life, vital skill sets often not taught in the classroom. For the artist who loves to bring friends together in DIY spaces, the aspiring curator dreaming of their own commercial gallery, or the arts patron with big ideas for an exhibition, pop-up, or interdisciplinary event. These workshops will help you build the necessary know-how to make those dreams a reality!
Each workshop will be 100% FREE and open to the public - with opportunities to be instructed by a range of cultural leaders in the Denver community and network with other emerging artists, curators, and creatives in a relaxed environment. We hope to see you there!
Max Kauffman
Max's (he/him) early style of painting was heavily influenced by music and its undefinability. Music conveys a mood, but you cannot hold it in your hand. You can’t point to it. Max explored this fluidity with his art. To this day, improvisation and the idea of worlds within worlds dictates a number of his pieces. Architecture factors heavily into what he does. As a way to tell a story but also as the basis of things. Recently Max is looking to nostalgia as a failing, a way to advance mythology. The internal maps of commonplace roadside objects and buildings are laid out with a leaning on emotional imprints and shorthand patterns. There is a ghost-like quality in all the pieces, a result of my effort to capture the passing essence of these relics.
MaryGrace (MG) Bernard
Mary Grace Bernard (MG, she/her) is a transmedia and performance artist, educator, advocate, and crip witch. Her practice finds itself at the intersection of performance art, transmedia installation art, art scholarship, art writing, curation, and activism. In 2017, MG launched the digital contemporary art platform Femme Salée (F&S) which is dedicated to starting, sharing, and making accessible difficult conversations frequently absent from the art world. She is a co-founder of the semi-anonymous performance and curatorial collective, Hexus, a staff art writer for DARIA Magazine, and an art collections assistant at the University of Denver. She holds a BA from the University of New Orleans, and two MAs—one from New York University and the other from the University of Denver.