What if the barriers keeping you from opportunities aren’t actually necessary?
What if the scarcity you’re experiencing is manufactured to keep you competing with other artists instead of connecting with them?
Damien Davis, a visual artist, writer, and educator, has spent years examining the power structures that shape the art world. His work includes:
Writing: Articles for Hyperallergic and other publications that expose gatekeeping mechanisms like application fees and the systems that keep artists competing instead of collaborating.
Studio practice: Colorful sculptures made from laser-cut acrylic and industrial hardware that draw viewers into conversations about erased histories.
Teaching: He calls himself “the bookends,” teaching freshman sculpture students to fall in love with being artists, then delivering harsh truths to seniors about working in the field. He recently moved to NYU Tandon to teach students how to put on professional exhibitions.
In this episode of The Art Biz, Damien shares how his master’s degree in visual arts administration—learning grant writing, fundraising, and strategic planning—gave him the tools to stop waiting for gatekeepers to decide he was good enough.
He explains why his definition of a successful artist has nothing to do with galleries or museums and everything to do with simply continuing to make work.
But the most powerful part of this conversation is Damien’s assertion that opportunities are actually abundant, and the people at the center of the art ecosystem benefit from keeping artists in perpetual competition. When artists talk to each other, share resources, and build community, that’s when the power shifts.
Listen
If you were inspired by this conversation with Damien, start by questioning one “rule” you’ve been following in your art career. Is there an application fee you’re hesitating to pay? A gatekeeper whose approval you’re waiting for? A definition of success that isn’t actually yours?
Now reach out to another artist and talk about it. Share what you’re questioning and ask what rules they’ve been following. That conversation—artist to artist—is how we start recognizing the abundance Damien talked about instead of staying stuck in competition.
Damien Davis Quotes
“I think that art school has a tendency to sort of flatten roles for people.”
“My definition for a successful artist has always been someone who just keeps making art. Someone who doesn’t give up, someone who doesn’t let the system tell them they can’t be creative in whatever way makes sense for them.”
“If being an artist for you is painting flowers in your grandma’s attic for like 30 years, that makes you a successful artist because you did it for 30 years.”
“As artists … we all should be striving towards identifying our own personal constellation of artists, historical movements, conceptual movements that actually frame who we are individually as creative people.”
“There’s all these systemic barriers that don’t actually need to exist that make it harder for artists to do their work, for artists to find each other, and for artists to gain access to the information, knowledge systems, communities that are gonna push their careers forward.”
“Playing this game of who gets what exhibition or who gets what fancy fellowship or grant—all it does is put us in this perpetual state of feeling like we’re in competition with each other. And that’s where these people not at the center of this ecosystem, that’s how they win.”
“Keeping us constantly at odds with each other, keeping us constantly competing for resources, time, energy, opportunities that should be and are abundant—that’s how they win.”
“I think the more that artists talk to each other, the more that we can recognize the abundance that we can create for ourselves and for each other.”
“I didn’t have to wait for the gatekeepers to decide that I was good enough.”
Mentioned
Project for Empty Space Studio
Some of Damien’s greatest hits in Hyperallergic:
About Damien Davis
Damien Davis is a Newark-based artist, writer, and educator whose practice explores cultural representation, abstraction, and systems of power. Working across sculpture, installation, public art, and writing, he recontextualizes symbols from architecture, digital culture, and diasporic histories to interrogate visibility and institutional narratives. His work has been exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Whitney, and he is a contributing writer to Hyperallergic. Davis teaches at New York University.
Follow Damien on Instagram: @damiendavis
