My biggest introvert problem is other people. My art coach, who I’ve only ever seen on Zoom, laughed when I told her, “I’ll go to an opening so long as there’s nobody there.”
I wasn’t joking.
As an avowed artist-introvert my studio is nirvana while an art opening hovers between the Seventh and Eighth Circles of Dante's hell. Seventh (Violence) (“I’m so doing violence to my simple quiet soul being here at this opening.”); Eighth (Fraud) (“Everybody here knows I don’t belong and soon they’ll march my sad ass out the door.”)
Thank God at least right now it’s sort of cool to be an introvert.
Pundits galore are weighing in on the benefits of being #introverted. Headlines from the internet include: The Power Of Introverts: Lessons From Successful Business Owners, Five Benefits of Being an Introvert and What’s the Difference Between Introverts and Extroverts?.
Florida State University psychologist K. Anders Ericsson believes that, “training conducted in solitude, with no partner or teammate--is key to achieving transcendent skill, whether in a sport, in a vocation or with a musical instrument.” from The Upside Of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts Are Overrated) .
Getting back to my favorite kind of art openings-the ones with nobody; they’re difficult to find. I’ve been to more than a few (well-populated) openings in my career as an artist and I still don’t understand how to do it. Redditors of course have plenty of suggestions on proper etiquette for openings.
To me an opening always looks like impenetrable groups of people talking in animated tones all well-known to each other. It’s as if there’s a forcefield encircling each group and the only way to join the conversation is by bare- handed lift of the electric fence.
But practice makes perfect, or at least gives lots of usable information. So, I carved out some space for myself on a recent Friday night, “Going out, going to a couple of openings, BY MYSELF,” I told my wife.
I wanted to see if my introvert self could do it different, get the real emotional experience one more time, of being out of place, out of my mind amid art, artists, collectors and critics, then reach out, fit in, communicate.
“I don’t mind art openings so long as there's nobody there.” I had no idea...
Surviving Hell and Art Openings
First stop: The Center for Creative Photography for the opening of “Louis Carlos Bernal: Overview” Immediately, I spy a humongous crowd gathered outside the entry doors.
I’ve never ever seen this before and I've been coming to the Center since I was a lad in britches, or at least 1982 when the Center was in a former bank one-tenth its current scale. I’m fashionably on time at 7:30 p.m., a half hour after the doors opened.
I make my way through the crowds and the wine vapors and hors d'oeuvres served in baby martini glasses. I see there’s a gallery assistant collecting admission tickets to the gallery just off the lobby. I turn back and find an assistant handing them out nearby. I present my entry ticket to the first assistant and I’m refused entry. She points to my ticket, “This is for 8:45 pm,” she tells me. (That’s an hour and forty-five minute wait.)
I turn on all the charm a 73 year old man can muster. I’m rebuffed at every turn. She suggests I, “Get a drink, have some food,” and finally, worst of all, “MINGLE.” Not, “Look at the art and mingle. Just...mingle. I can’t do it.
For experimental integrity I was willing to mingle under very controlled circumstances with art and art people while not looking directly at the other person. But face-to-face random small talk five or ten minutes at a time with multiple partners? Fate worse than death, stab me now.
I felt doomed and departed without seeing the show or practicing any conversational skills. (Key takeaway: my charm left with my hairline quite some time ago.)
At my second gallery, it’s clear the party' was over an hour before I arrived. The hors d'oeuvres table is decimated and now unattended. What seem to be candy apples are in fact mini sandwiches topped with a green olive and stabbed with skewers. They were way more appetizing an hour ago. There are no crowds and it’s a huge and cavernous venue. (A performance was taking place behind curtains where I might have found a crowd but hardly ideal for practicing the “mingle.”
Where looking at art and interacting with people at openings has always proved problematic, I have finally solved the how-to-look-at-art question . Big win there. My tried and true strategy for seeing and “getting" the art on the wall? This tested method from Bianca Bosker.
By night’s end my experiment in art opening anti-introversion seemed a failure. Not because my inner introvert couldn’t adapt to the cacophonic environment of an art opening but because I was unable to locate an opening suitable for the experiment.
An Introvert’s guide
For my next time out to openings, I need to recall that introversion and shyness are different. About shyness in artists, Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine writes, “I know you want to dance naked in your studio, work, and whatever. But if you also want to dance naked in public, you have to test your ideas on others, be part of a crowd, link up with the group mind.” Read Jerry’s full response to --ShyArtist here
Last ditch art opening advice for introverts: make everyone else naked as well.
Meantime, I know as an introvert I’m in good company-- Paul Cézanne, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Jonas, and Vincent Van Gogh, every one of them same as me and look how they turned out.