I remember it was summer of 1995 at the Venice Biennial and I was participating in a group exhibition titled Transculture, organized by Fumio Nanjo, where I was exhibiting a selection of photographs. One day I was in the gallery when Annina Nosei walked in. She studied the photos very carefully and quietly, and then she walked over to me and without any introduction said in her Italian accent: “I offer you a solo-show at my gallery this September.”

I was flattered by this invitation, but was completely shocked because September was only two months away and I had so far only produced eight to 10 photographs, so I found myself at a loss for an answer. I can’t remember how I managed, but my first gallery exhibition opened at Annina Nosei in her Soho space in September of 1995. To my surprise the show received critical attention, and Annina succeeded in launching my career like she had for so many other artists.

Dread Scott. Courtesy of the artist.

My first significant gallery exhibition was a bit of an accident. I had an artwork, What is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag?, that was at the center of a national controversy over its use of the American flag. President G. H.W. Bush had publicly called the work “disgraceful,” and it was very much in the news while I was still an undergrad. In this context, a commercial New York gallery, Wessel O’Connor, offered me a show and to represent me. So this show just fell in my lap. This was in 1989, and no one I knew had any thoughts of making a career as an artist, and I barely knew what representation was. But I was happy for the opportunity and the show turned out to be quite well-received.

More important than this, at least in terms of action I took to show my work, was a decision I made five years earlier. I entered a juried competition when I was 20. I had come to the naive, but correct, conclusion that my work was as good or as bad as plenty of the work I was seeing in shows, so why shouldn’t my work be on view also. This confidence in myself and decision that my work should be shown was decisive. I knew that my work would continue to mature as I got older, but that for that to happen, it had to be seen.

As a general rule, juried competitions are a rip-off and are not useful for building artist’s career beyond their first couple of exhibition opportunities, but that’s what this was for me. This show was at the Illinois State Museum and I still remember literally leaping into the air when I opened the letter that and it read that my work had been accepted into the show. What was important was the decision to show my work and find the venues that would show it. That decision and ongoing approach has led to the shows I’ve had ever since.

Although I was never a color field painter, in 1970, I was socially part of the Greenberg color field group. At the time, I was making life-sized paintings of rugs, in particular, patterned, faded, and worn configurations that overlapped, draped or hung. In good part this was due to Anouche, an Armenian rug dealer on Amsterdam Avenue, who often gave me rugs that were too worn or torn to sell. The Greenberg group could not have been less interested in this work, and may not even have considered it painting. But the art world was very small at that time, and most dealers were more than happy to have real conversations about their artists and their work.

I began frequenting the Jill Kornblee gallery. Jill had an eclectic taste and showed a wide range of artists: Malcolm Morley, Howard Hodgkin, Dan Flavin, Janet Fish, Nina Yankowitz, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jaunne Quick-to-See Smith, Rackstraw Downes, and Richard Smith, among others. This was where I wanted to show, but it took me several years to summon the courage to ask Jill if she would come for a studio visit. She did, she loved the work, and I had my first show at her gallery the following year, in 1971.

Sean Scully. Courtesy of Liliane Tomasko via Mnuchin Gallery.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artists-remember-first-exhibition-593666