The art that I show on my gallery tours has always been the most cutting-edge I can find. Indeed, one of my specialties is identifying and sharing artwork that incorporates technology. Yet, until now, my website and my business haven’t kept pace with the most recent technological wave. So this summer I decided to hire social media consultant Zachary Adam Cohen (I met him at a Chelsea gallery opening, which assured me that he has a foot in the art world) to scrap my website and overhaul it from top to bottom. Zac also suggested that I integrate social media into both my website and my business, as he felt it would allow me to both deepen the relationship with my existing clients, and set me up to acquire new ones. The result is the website you are now on. For the first time ever, I have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, online purchase capability, a blog, and more, all of it integrated into my website. And it’s artful, besides. I’ve now entered the social media age.

I can’t say it has been an easy transition. For eight years I used the same website, and we all know there is a certain comfort to following a routine. Plus, I had an understandable attachment to a site that helped grow my business from a once-a-month “hobby,” into what it is today, my passion and primary source of income. But the years on the former website were showing – I now see that it had become a dinosaur: more of a billboard than the dynamic, interactive site that I hope it is now becoming.

In embarking on the social media express, I’m having to not only train myself to use new technology tools, but also to re-conceptualize my relationship with clients, in how we interact online and elsewhere. I’m still in the first stages of this, so one could say I and my enterprise are works in progress, as maybe they should be. And, now that my website is as cutting edge as my tours, I plan to update its rapidly evolving social media components regularly to keep it that way.

The unknown is, of course, both scary and exciting. Certainly this was the case when I began leading gallery tours in March 2002. The city was still raw and bleeding from the September 11 attacks just months prior (I live a mile away from ground zero). New York Gallery Tours was my way of giving back to a city that remains the world’s cultural capital, a city I love deeply.

My enterprise was never supposed to be a business, as I was employed at the time as a full-time professor at Kean University in New Jersey, teaching educational psychology to undergraduates, with a specialty in arts education. Tours were supposed to be a side venture, an experiment, something that allowed me to share my fanatical obsession with and vast knowledge of the New York gallery scene with a few more people. To my surprise, what started out as tours with just a handful of participants soon grew to dozens of people fraternizing, enjoying the art, and generally having a great time.

Finally, after 16 years of teaching, I quit my tenured job – giving up the cushy benefits and financial security – and devoted myself to tours. Sometimes you need to follow your passion, come what may, and I haven’t looked back since. During the ongoing recession my business has actually continued to grow, to my amazement and relief. Now, with my plunge into the social media waters, I am growing in yet another new direction. Join me on this adventure, if you like, and let’s see where this all goes.

Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D.
Founder and Director
New York Gallery Tours