contemporary monkey

the exciting job of a gallerist can be yours

Want a job?  I know, you’d think in these desperate times what job could possibly be so readily available.  Unemployment stretching toward 10% in the US, skyrocketing toward 8% in the UK, and probably just as bleak on the European continent, how could such an unforeseen opportunity exist?  What, the fleeing Third Worldians from Calais didn’t find it interesting enough?

This sure-fire job is completely within the law, above board, tax paying, licensed, and approved by the authorities.  Nope, no law breaking here.  What’s more, you wouldn’t really have to work that hard.  Sure, you might have to render a fuzzy appearance of busy-ness and possibly erudite bookishness, but hardworking?  Never.  Still, we ask that you please don’t doze off in your chair.  We do have a few protocols, and appearances must be retained.  You’d be required to exist in the public realm, so personal hygiene is compulsory.  The last thing we need is for someone to notice that you’re there.  Still, it’s a paycheck, and the appeal is, the less you do, the more likely it is you stay.  What do you say sailor, interested? Well then, read on:

Gallery Assistant: Must work days (but certainly not all days; in fact, not even close to a full week).  Hours are minimal – think Bank Teller.  Starting time is definitely nothing earlier than, say, 11:00 a.m., but at times you’d have to work into the night.  Naturally, on those particularly harsh work days you’d be drinking cocktails with journalists, curators, artists, and on rare occasions, a buyer or two.  The good news is you can stay out late because, let’s face it, we wouldn’t expect you to come ’round the joint until lunch time the next day.  In which case you need enough energy to unlock the door, ignore a gallery visitor or two waiting for someone to arrive about an hour ago, then shuffle toward your happy desk where your friend Mr. Computer and Mrs. Internet will keep you company for the rest of this miserable hung-over, why can’t people leave me alone, day.  With any luck, visitors won’t be bothering you, but just in case the odd character has an annoying question, you’ll have a friendly phone nearby to keep up the pretense of any sales activity (yeah right!).  On some days, we’ll schedule you with another gallery assistant, where one of you is guaranteed a late morning sleep-in.  Also, once your colleague does make it in, the endless discussion of gallery business nonsense will keep the visitors from approaching your forbidding fort of prevention until the Flintstones-like horn assures you that the day has indeed ended, thankfully, and nobody has stolen any of your valuable time, let alone the artwork  This is where the most difficult part of the job will test even the most lethargic of gallery assistants. On your way out of the shop, before closing, and hopefully locking, the door, you’ll have to remember to turn the lights out.  All of them.  Otherwise, you’re only making it more difficult for the gallery assistant working the next day (this will likely be you) because the shop will actually appear open to unsuspecting art collectors and visitors. Those pesky customers; why can’t they just come back some other time.  Like, never would be good.

Pay: Well, let’s be honest, you won’t be doing much, so we’ll be paying appropriately.  Still it’s “value for money” as the punters say, and the benefits are enormous in comparison to the mean sum you’ll collect each week.  Plus you’ll have somewhere to go.  Think of it as a paid holiday, surrounded by whatever we call art.  You’re guaranteed heaps of the latter by the way, because, as the gallery isn’t open very often, the works of art don’t usually go very far.  It’ll be just you and the art.  Or possibly you, one of your friends, and the art.  But definitely the art, because as far as we’re concerned, nobody’s leaving with those.