An Assessment of the Future Artistic Career Prospects for

Agnes Bolt

An Assessment of the Future Artistic Career Prospects for Agnes Bolt

Background and Scope Agnes Bolt is an artist and a Masters of Fine Art (MFA) candidate at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). She received a BA from New York University, College of Arts and Science, in 2001. She has a history of public exhibitions, screenings, awards, press reviews and publications that are detailed in her Curriculum Vitae (CV) that is included as Attachment 1. Her work is interdisciplinary incorporating video, photography, installation and intervention.1 In addition to her own art, Ms. Bolt has experience as a curator, educator and participant in other aspects of the artistic community. Those experiences, while relevant to her development as an artist, fall outside of the scope of this report. This report will project what the future may hold for Ms. Bolts artistic career as requested on Day 2 of her project with me. The entire request which defines the scope of this project is included as Attachment 2. This is not an attempt to see into the future, nor will I attempt to predict what the future holds for Agnes Bolt. I will look at criteria that affect the future career of an artist and compare them to Ms. Bolts circumstances. The report will consider several different aspects of Ms. Bolts career: Continuing to work as a professional artist; Exhibiting work in increasingly significant venues and to greater attention; Sustaining herself financially from the production of her art; and Becoming familiar to the general public as an artist during her lifetime.

Projecting from the general trends of past experiences may provide insight into the future career path for a particular artist, but there are many intangibles influencing an artists career that cannot be anticipated. Also, the time frame in which this report was generated was relatively short, and thus it relies almost exclusively on publicly available information, with little independent verification. My background: I am a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. I have been working as an actuary in private industry and government for over 25 years. While I have used some of the skills I have developed as an actuary in creating this report, it is not an actuarial report and therefore I have not demonstrated compliance with requirements to issue a Statement of Actuarial Opinion. I have also been an active art collector and participant in the Washington, DC art community for over 20 years, so I am also relying on the knowledge I have gained through this experience.
1

Agnes Bolt bio from CMU web site - http://people.art.cfa.cmu.edu/people/2947-AgnesBolt

Approach Taken This primary characteristic upon which the projections in this report are based is that Agnes Bolt is scheduled to receive an MFA from CMU in 2012. While attainment of an MFA is not a requirement for a successful artistic career, it is a significant element and one that provides comparable information. According to CMU, between1985 and 2009 there were 118 students who graduated from CMU with an MFA (CMU Grads or graduates)2. A list of those graduates is included in Attachment 3. This report examines the history of those graduates as a predictor of a career path for Ms. Bolt. Should Ms. Bolt fail to complete her MFA at CMU, this will no longer serve as an appropriate basis for projections. I assumed that a person actively working as an artist in 2011 will have significant information about their art career on the internet. I searched the internet for a CV for each of the 118 graduates. Failing to find a CV, I looked for similar information in another format. If I was unable to find any information, or found information about a non-art producing career, I assumed that the graduate was no longer working as an artist. I collected and recorded information from each CV, which provides a basis for determining how each graduate compared to the aspects of Ms. Bolts career that this report will consider. The information based on the review of past experience of CMU Grads has been supplemented with additional information that will be explained in more detail in the sections that follow. Working as a Professional Artist Of the 118 CMU Grads since 1985 included in this study, over 60% were still working as artists in 2011. Many of the graduates who do not appear to be working as artists were working in careers that clearly were aided by their training at CMU. Also, they may continue to create art for their personal pleasure without attempting to exhibit it publicly. To determine the likelihood that Agnes Bolt will continue to work as a professional artist, I took a weighted average of the length of time each of the 118 graduates continued to work as an artist after graduation, based on the information described above. For graduates who were no longer creating art, I assumed that they continued to work after graduation for of the time since graduation up to a maximum of 5 years. The use of a 5 year maximum was arbitrary, since I was unable to find statistics on the average length of time an artist continues to create art work after graduating with an MFA. I did sensitivity testing of the results using 10 years instead of 5 and found that it had little impact on the conclusions. With better information about the working lifetime of the graduates no longer working as artists, a more precise method could have been used to develop better estimates, but given the limitations of the data, the weighted average should provide a reasonable result.

CMU web site - http://people.art.cfa.cmu.edu/people/alumni

Based on my review of the CMU Grads, Ms. Bolt is likely to continue to create art for her working lifetime. The table below shows the results of the calculation as the percentage of time, on average, since graduation that CMU Grads were working as artists. For example, after 5 years from graduation, the graduates worked as artists for almost 4 years (90% of the time). As shown in the table, through ten years after graduation, the percentage of time working as an artist was still approximately 90%. The percentage drops after that, but 25 years after graduation, CMU Grads still had spent two-thirds of their career since graduation working as artists. Based on this, it is likely that Ms. Bolt will be working as an artist in 2029 and beyond.

CMUGradsTimeWorkingasanArtistby Duration
100% PercentageofTimePostMFAWorkingasan Artist 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 5 10 15 YearsSinceGraduation 20 25

Exhibitions In order to determine whether the CMU Grads had success in exhibiting their work, I reviewed whether the graduates identified solo exhibitions and exhibiting work in museums. Forty-eight of the graduates identified having had a solo exhibition, which is 40% of the total group, but over two-thirds of those who are still working artists. It can be expected that some of those who are no longer working as artists had solo exhibitions, but probably fewer than those who are still exhibiting. The overall percentage of artists with solo exhibitions should be somewhere between 40% and 67%.

Similar to Ms. Bolt, many of the CMU Grads work is interdisciplinary, which tends to lend itself to participation in group exhibits, so this is an extremely high success rate in exhibiting work in solo shows. And with the exhibit for which this report is being prepared, Ms. Bolt clearly will be included in the CMU Grads with solo exhibitions. Only 7.6% of the graduates listed exhibiting work in a museum. I used some judgment in evaluating both the significance of the exhibit and the significance of the museum, and excluded listings that did not appear to be regular exhibits, or museums that appeared to focus regionally or otherwise be less beneficial to promoting the artists career. Excluding those graduates no longer exhibiting, the percentage jumps up to 12%. It is also relevant to note that looking at the artists still working who graduated more than 10 years ago, the percentage exhibiting in museums goes up slightly, indicating that the longer the artist works, the more likely they are to be exhibited in a museum. This is not necessarily intuitive given the focus on youth in the art world. Beyond exposure through temporary exhibitions in museums, I reviewed information to determine whether Ms. Bolt will have art acquired and regularly exhibited in museums. Since I live in Washington, DC, I looked to the 2007 study by the Guerilla Girls regarding the percentage of male artists on exhibit at that time in four DC museums3. The results below are not likely to be significantly different today. Museum Percent Male National Gallery of Art 98% National Portrait Gallery 93% Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden 95% American Art Museum & Renwick Gallery 88% These statistics point out the difficulty Ms. Bolt will encounter in having her work acquired and exhibited by major museums. Ms. Bolts work is probably more of a challenge for commercial galleries, given that the collectors who gravitate toward the type of work she produces are fewer than those who collect more traditional, though still contemporary work. Since museums do not function to sell art, Ms. Bolt should direct her career toward appealing to museums. If she is able to establish a presence at museums through temporary exhibitions, it will convey to collectors that her work has value and it will be deemed collectible by a wider group of patrons. It will also increase the possibility that her work may be acquired and exhibited by museums. Admittedly, getting museums to show her work is a challenge; Ms. Bolt should make a significant body of work that is of a size and scope to appeal to museums. Financial Sustainability According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 23,600 fine artists working in the US in 2008 and that number is expected to increase to 25,700 by 2018. Of that group, the number of self-employed artists, who are likely to support themselves by
3

Guerilla girls, Horror on the National Mall - http://www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/washposthorror.shtml

selling their artwork, was 14,100 in 2008, growing to 14,800 by 2018. According to the same study, the median income for salaried fine artists was $42,650. The BLS did not provide an estimate for self-employed fine artists but noted, [m]any, however, find it difficult to rely solely on income earned from selling paintings or other works of art.4 The competition for exhibition slots in commercial galleries and other venues that sell contemporary art will likely increase, since the number of such exhibition spaces is not likely to match the increase in the number of fine artists. Ms. Bolt is therefore unlikely to be able to support herself from selling her artwork and will have to secure other employment unless she is otherwise able to support herself without working. Due to periods of very intense effort in the creation of her work, she will not be able to work a typical 40-hour work week and continue to create art as she currently does. I can report from my experience as a participant that it was difficult to keep up with my limited responsibilities for this project while working a full time job. Should she seek employment, Ms. Bolt will most probably work in a field that is related to her training at CMU. Recognition by the General Public One key element for an artist desiring to cross over and become recognized by the general public is to get press coverage in significant media outlets. I reviewed the exposure CMU Grads received in nationally significant newspapers and periodicals. Again there was a subjective element in this determination. I tended to exclude coverage in major metropolitan newspapers if it was the home town paper of the artist, unless that town was one of the major US art centers New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. Based on my criteria, 11% of the CMU Grads received such exposure. That figure rose to 18% if I only considered those artists who are still active. And again, when I looked at only those artists who had graduated at least 10 years ago, the figure increases slightly to 20%, indicating some benefit of perseverance. I also considered the hypotheses that there is not currently a living artist with broad recognition among the general public, and that most artists known to the general public are male. To test these hypotheses, I gave a two-question survey to a sample of acquaintances who do not follow the art world. I asked them to 1) name a living nationally, or internationally known artist and 2) name a nationally, or internationally known female artist. They were instructed to write none if no one came to mind. Only three respondents (out of 9) wrote something other than none and two of those respondents listed artists who, upon review, did not meet the criteria. One respondent named Damien Hirst and Joan Mitchell. All of the respondents who answered something other than none listed a man for the first question. This, admittedly limited, sample supports both hypotheses mentioned above. This is not to say that living artists can no longer gain recognition with the general public, but that it is difficult, and doubly so for female artists. Artists who have gained wide recognition outside the art world generally
4

Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition - http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos092.htm#emply

fall into one of two categories those who attract attention by being outrageous (e.g., Warhol, Dali) and those who have a sentimental appeal (e.g., Rockwell, Wyeth). Ms. Bolt has already received recognition in a significant magazine Harpers, and also in the Washington Post, so she has taken a step in the direction of general name recognition, but she has significant obstacles to overcome in order to achieve that status. While her work does have a very personal element to it, I do not believe she can gain general recognition through the sentimental appeal approach. The nature of her work puts her in position to strive for recognition by being outrageous. Summary While not a prediction of the future, a coordinated vision of a future for Ms. Bolt is that she will complete her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2012. After graduation, she will get a technology job that gives her flexibility to work an irregular schedule. She will continue to create work that involves intervention. This will include developing a body of work that involves the occasional recurrent use of people she has worked with in the past. The new work will focus on challenging the relationships she developed with those people. This particular body of work will achieve both critical and popular success and will result in an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 2021 that includes, among other work, this document. The MoMA exhibit will give Ms. Bolt exposure that will result in sustained attention in the art press for her future exhibitions, and exposure in the celebrity press for her non-art activities. This report has been prepared by,

Philip Barlow September 2, 2011

Attachments: Attachment 1 Agnes Bolt Curriculum Vitae Attachment 2 Day 2: Expertise Attachment 3 - Carnegie Mellon University - MFA Graduates 1985 - 2009

Cover photo courtesy of Agnes Bolt

Attachment 1

AGNES BOLT
Born Krakow, Poland, 1980 Living and working in Pittsburgh, PA and Brooklyn, NY

Selected Exhibitions and Performance

2011 Upcoming Solo exhibition, Project 4 Gallery, Washington D.C. Sisters of the Lattice: Interventions into Tourism, select locations in Romania and Italy, July 2011 Independence Returns, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Tempo, organized by linearossa at .NO Gallery, NYC BYOB Venezia, as part of the Internet Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale Pittsburgh Billboard Project, selected by Graham Shearing, Pittsburgh, PA Fresh Baked Goods, Bakery Square Center, Pittsburgh, PA 2010 BYOB, curated by Rafael Rozendaal, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, NYC Double Rainbow, Graduate Panels, Carnegie Mellon University, May 2010 Bring Your Own Beamer, Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA Independence, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Eat Me, Fundraiser Show, Future Tenant Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA Fools Gold, UnSmoke Gallery, Braddock, PA Tough Art Exhibition, Childrens Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA Pittsburgh Billboard Project, selected by Eric Shiner, Milton Fine Curator of Art at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA Quiet in the Land? Future Tenant Gallery, curated by Dan Byers, Curator Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA Visual Voices, Stedman Gallery, Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts, NJ Lucid Directions, Richmond Center for Visual Arts, MI 2009 Just Visiting, Goldway Gallery. Braddock, PA Good Work, Installation, Carnegie Mellon Doherty Gallery (Solo) Hole Interactive Performance. Carnegie Mellon University The Real and The Unreal, Internationale Sommerakademie fr Bildende Kunst Salzburg, Austria Fulfiller, Installation, 3rd Ward Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2008 Performance with Dillon de Give, Dark Eyed Junco, Calvert Vaux Park, NY Karma Hoax video and performance for Stars Like Fleas, Monkeytown, Brooklyn, NY Performance, with Dillon de Give, The Endale Epoch, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY Performance with Dillon de Give, The Great Extemporizer, Baltimore Transmodern Festival, MD 2007 And Now... And Now, BRIC Studios, Brooklyn, NY Come One Come All, Performance and Installation , 3rd Ward, Brooklyn 2006 Laughing Club Public Performances, 2005-6 The House Installation, Noh Gallery Collective, Brooklyn, NY Killer Capote, Audio performance in collaboration with Montgomery Knott , Monkeytown, Brooklyn, NY

Screenings
Souvenirs from Earth, European Video art channel, featured artist, 2011-present, screened in Germany and France in Centre Pompidou, Paris among others Caught Looking IV, PNC Park Jumbotron Video Show, curated by Jacob Ciocci and Andrew Swensen, Pittsburgh, PA, 2010 Video Screening, Artist Image Resource 9th Annual Benefit, Pittsburgh, PA, 2010 A Few Plays About the Dark Performance Festival video screening. The Lutheran Church of Brooklyn, NY, 2009 Jerry video screening, MoMA Staff Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, NYC, 2008

Curatorial and Professional

Awards and Distinctions

Fine Foundation Artist Grant, 2011 Heinz Endowment Small Arts Initiative Grant, 2010 A.W. Mellon Educational & Charitable Trust Fund Project Grant, 2010 Simonds Fellowship, 2010 Puffin Foundation Artist Grant, 2010 Kosciuszko Foundation Graduate Scholar Award, 2010 & 2011 GUSH Grant, Carnegie Mellon University, 2010 Tough Art Residency, Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh, Summer 2010 C.G. Douglas Corrigan Travel Fellowship, 2010 & 2011 Graduate Assistantship Fellowship, Carnegie Mellon University, 2009-2012 Full Grant from Association of the Friends of the Sommerakademie fr Bildende Kunst Salzburg, Summer 2009 CAS Trustee Academic Scholaraship (1997-2001) Founders Academic Scholarships (1997-2001) and graduated with honors

Guest Panel Artist, Visual Voices Symposium, Stedman Gallery, Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts, 2010 Guest Artist lecture, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon, 2010 G18 Graduate Student Presentation, Kresge Theater, Carnegie Mellon University, 2009 Co-Curator, 4 Part Sustainability and Art Lecture Series, Museum of Modern Art, first event April 6th, 2009 Curator, Eco Art Staff Video Screening with artists such as Fritz Haeg, SuperFlex,Andrea Polli, FutureFarmers, Michel de Brion. Museum of Modern Art, April, 2008 and 2009 Creative Times exhibition Strange Powers, docent July- September 2006 Art:21: Art in the 21st Century, Curatorial Assistant, Season 3, 2006 Curator, various art and performance events at, Noh Gallery Collective, 2004-Spring 2005 Barely, by Seth Cluett, curated audio-based pool installation. Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY, 2003

Attachment 1

Education

MFA candidate, Carnegie Mellon University School of FineArt, 2012 BA, New York University, College of Arts and Science, New York, 1997-2001 Instituto Internacional, Madrid, Spain, 1999

Teaching

Teaching Assistant, Carnegie Mellon University, Fall 2009-Spring 2012 Advanced Contextual Practice; Concept Studios; Site-Specific Art Studio

Publications
The Braddocks, artist produced book, released Fall 2011. Essay by Dan Byers; designed by Brett Yasko Artisfear.tumblr.com. Journal of events from the Collectors perspective during Collectors Project Performance

Select Press Harpers Magazine. Readings. August, 2011 Featured Virtual Studio Visit on Sickoftheradio.com, August 2011
Capps, Kriston. Together, patron and artist endure a live-in, week-long performance art project. Washington Post, May 15,2011 Green, Tyler. Modern Art Notes. Artinfo, May 16, 2011 Greenwood, Arin. Agnes Bolt Is Smelling Ripe After a Week in the Plexiglass Bubble. Washington City Paper, May 14, 2011 NBC Washington News. Artist Spending Week in Living-Room Bubble. May 11, 2011 Featured on www.sickoftheradio.com, November 24, 2010 Featured on www.todayandtomorrow.net, November 6, 2010 Rozendaal, Rafael. www.newrafael.com, 2010 Levine, Marty. Pop City. September 16, 2010 Brittany Yam. PushPin Gallery Blog. Featured Artist in May, 2010 Sloss, Eric. College of FineArt Lab6 Podcast, Guest Artist, www.cfa.cmu.edu/labA6.php?sub_page=media, 2010 Rice, Scott. Seattle Gay News, Feb. 13, 2009

Re: Day 2
Attachment 2
Subject: Re: Day 2 From: Agnes Bolt <agnes@agnesbolt.com> Date: 8/19/2011 8:04 PM To: Philip Barlow <pbar@verizon.net>

On 8/19/11 7:51 PM, "Philip Barlow" <pbar@verizon.net> wrote:

You are an artist, but my knowledge of your work is limited to performancebased work. I assume that all art springs from a grounding in more traditional techniques. So for your task, I would like you to draw an image of the two of us together. The drawing should be done without referencing any images of either of us during the actual creation of the drawing. I realize we will be interacting over the next several days and that you will see my image at times during the period and that is ok, but the drawing itself should be done from memory. I would also like the drawings to be of scale so that you have to make an assumption of our relative sizes, since we have never actually been together in person.
On 8/19/2011 9:18 AM, Agnes Bolt wrote: Day 2 Dear Philip,

1 of 2

8/28/2011 7:46 PM

Attachment 3

Carnegie Mellon University - MFA Graduates 1985 - 2009

1 2 3 4 5 Class of 2009 Jennifer Gooch Joseph Hays Samina Mansuri Michael Nixon Gregory Witt Class of 2008 Christopher Beauregard Michelle Fried Benjamin Kinsley Eileen Maxson John Pea Allison Reeves Class of 2007 Lauren Adams Matthew R Barton Jan Descartes David Halsell Ian Ingram Gunnhildur Johnsdottir Cassandra C Jones David Tinapple Class of 2006 Lilith Bailey-Kroll Cheryl L. Casteen William Cravis Takehito Etani Tiffany Sum Class of 2005 Jacob Ciocci Adam Davies Carolyn Lambert Mario Marzan Suzannah Paul Siobhan Rigg Ruth Stanford Class of 2004 Alexi Goodrich Fereshteh Hamidi-Toosi 34 Shana Moulton Class of 2003 Chung Yean Cho Fredrick M. Dixon Naomi Falk Anat Pollack Class of 2002 Sean Bidic R. Brad McCombs Todd Pavlisko Semi Ryu Mary Brooke Singer Class of 2001 Krista Connerly S. Emily De Araujo George Magalios Rosina Santana Evan Tapper Rebecca Vaughan Class of 2000 Cooper Burchenal Peter Coffin Peter Coppin Thomas Feulmer Carolina Loyola-Garcia Elizabeth Monoian Class of 1999 Marc Boehlen Hyla Willis Ricardo Miranda Zuniga Class of 1998 Ping Cao Kimberly Hover Chris Thunblom

35 36 37 38

6 7 8 9 10 11

39 40 41 42 43

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

44 45 46 47 48 49

20 21 22 23 24

50 51 52 53 54 55

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

56 57 58

59 60 61

32 33

Attachment 3

Carnegie Mellon University - MFA Graduates 1985 - 2009

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 Class of 1997 Sandra Budd Steffi Domike Jon Dunn Christina Hung Laleh Mehran Leah Piepgras Katherine Walazek Class of 1996 Consuelo Echeverria Colin Piepgras Carlos Szembek Paul Vanouse Class of 1995 Yaming Di Catharine Fichtner Josette Ghiseline Christopher Siefert Class of 1994 Andrew Johnson Amy Novelli Beth Sallan Megan Shay Andres Tapia Urzua Class of 1993 Todd Bartel Class of 1992 Martin Beck Douglas Hewitt Alaa Eldin Ibrahim Anne Jochimsen Akemi Ohira Class of 1991 Robert Dunn Class of 1990 Ursula Cornejo-Soto 112 113 114 90 91 92 93 94 95 Robert Ferguson Barbara Kuller Mayumi Matsuo Frederick Miller Patricia Perrone Robin Sussman Class of 1989 James Duncan Edward Inks Glenn Ricci Barry Shields Matthew Wrbican Class of 1988 Douglas Goldsmith David Hawbaker Martha Jackson James Kocher-Hillmer John Lysak Margaret Rose Class of 1987 Brian Hall Agnes Klein Ragnhildur Stefansdottir Elizabeth Van Dusen Ellen Ward Class of 1986 Martin Cohen Joan Mertz Heather Rockwell Class of 1985 Brian Buckley Isabelle Moldovan Joel Pace Steven Vradelis

69 70 71 72

96 97 98 99 100

73 74 75 76

101 102 103 104 105 106

77 78 79 80 81

107 108 109 110 111

82

83 84 85 86 87

115 116 117 118

88

89