Path to Art Advisory: Heather Marx
Heather Marx is a community-minded arts professional with over 25 years experience curating, promoting, and exhibiting visual and digital art by emerging, mid-career and established U.S. and international artists. Marx has a BA and MA in Art History from UCSB and has extensive experience working closely with museums, nonprofits, government, and community groups and has curated and produced 150+ exhibitions with over 200 artists, including at least a dozen thematic shows, several of which earned national media coverage. Marx has also managed and produced 30+ public and private art commissions. Marx founded and ran Heather Marx Gallery (later named Marx & Zavattero), a leading contemporary gallery in San Francisco for 13 years.
Heather Marx at Heather Marx Gallery front desk for opening of California Dreamin’ 2002
What was your first “art world” job?
I worked at the Newport Harbor Art Museum’s (now the Orange County Museum of Art) museum store at South Coast Plaza during High school right before college. My first more professional job was Assistant Director at Mark Moore Gallery in Long Beach, CA.
What's one lesson you learned that has stayed with you?
Always pay the artists first.
Where did you first hear about art advising?
Through clients of the galleries I worked at and owned. We appreciated the value Advisors brought to the business and shepherding new clients our way.
Who did you look up to when you were first considering art advising?
Putter Pence was always a great presence and supporter of all levels of galleries and artists. Britta Campbell, a Bay Area art advisor, and I have worked together for decades and she was instrumental in helping me to gain entry into the corporate art consulting world when I launched HMxAA. Learning that side of the business from Britta opened a much larger world to me that I love working in as you tend to work with architects and developers and are part of large teams of creative people.
What drew you to art advising over other art world careers?
The opportunity to work with any artist and choose a variety of projects that challenge me and provide creative freedom.
Heather Marx & Steve Zavattero, Marx & Zavattero booth, Pulse Miami, 2008. Photo by Dolph Kessler and in his book Art Fairs, published 2009.
Heather Marx (center) at my first curated exhibition after launching Heather Marx Art Advisory in 2014. Show title, “I look for Clues in Your Dreams,” Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA. Artists L- R: Amber Jean Young, Victoria Wagner, Heather Marx curator, Leo Bersamina, Christopher Robin Duncan
What advice would you give your younger self just starting out on the path to art advising?
Be kind, humble, curious and hard working. Generate your own ideas and craft a space for yourself in the art world. It takes time so be patient. Also don’t be afraid to take risks.
