The Entrepreneurial Artist as Marketer

The art organisation today utilise marketing concepts and practices. Much of what is actually practiced is at best an inefficient form of marketing, and at worst an inappropriate way of securing visitor numbers, making profit from merchandising and encouraging repeat visits. The art organisation exhibits similar characteristics to the small and medium sized enterprise (SME). Contemporary research, from the Marketing and Entrepreneurship Interface shows that conventional forms of marketing are inappropriate when attempting to practice and theorise marketing from a smaller firm context. A more creative entrepreneurial form of marketing is called for. A conceptual model of entrepreneurial marketing is developed before focusing on how the art organisation can learn from creative practitioners and businesses in industry in general and in the artworld in particular. The methodology adopted focuses on the examination of published biographies and related sources of creative individual and organisational behaviour in order to elicit a framework of creative art marketing.