my first encounter Daisy Sanchez As a teenager, I followed her on Tumblr, where she posted art she browsed from her online archives, as well as photos of her life in New York, and text posts about her favorite artwork. Sanchez captivated audiences with a joyous, infectious enthusiasm for the way art communicates. I discovered a quality in meeting her that translates into how she looks in real life – a key aspect of her charm.
At just 23 years old, Sanchez has become a talented young curator.
In 2019, she planned the show Rawr means i love you in dinosaur The Luboff Gallery, which includes Riley Hansen’s mood-focused paintings and photographs by James Gregory Atkinson.The show has garnered widespread acclaim, garnering praise from critics Art Forumcomments from American artthen shouting loudly time ouTon. Sanchez’s most recent exhibition, ordinary pursuit, was on display at the entrance to the Lower East Side until early May. The group show brings together artists and works that delve into the relationship between fashion, art, and low-key jobs trying to make ends meet.
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“Advertising is seen as vulgar, but all galleries are boutiques. Even if some people position themselves as mini art galleries – the piece is still for sale,” Sanchez told Reuters art news, As she sat on a shabby red sofa in the back room of Entrance, brooding the tension that fueled the show.
She added: “Acting as if it’s not about money, but people do it because they come from money, which is more upscale.”
Sanchez doesn’t have that luxury. At 16 — when her Tumblr followers had numbered in the thousands — she and her mother moved from San Francisco to New York. She had been attending a public alternative high school, Ruth Asawa Art School, but when she moved to the city, she missed the public school application deadline. Her father died when she was young, leaving money for her education, and she was thrust into the dizzying world of Manhattan’s private schools.
“I’m with these private school kids whose parents are looking for jobs for them,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my mom doesn’t know anyone. I don’t have any family connections. So what do I have, what’s my capital?
Sanchez realized that to be successful in New York, she had to build her own network. In her free time, she began interning in galleries. While she credits the free beer at the opening for attracting her internship in the first place, the truth is that Sanchez is trying to solve all the expendable problems of how to make a living.
She switched her platform from Tumblr to Instagram first because it obviously helped her network better.
Courtesy Entrance Gallery
“Instagram is my way of finding a job,” Sanchez said. “It helps that people see my followers and who’s following me.”
Appropriately, her business card positions her in: NY, NY and Online Forever.
Sanchez’s first intern was at 56Henry, a gallery run by the sociable Ellie Rines, whom Sanchez considers her biggest supporter.
“Unpaid, but more valuable money could have paid me,” Sanchez said.
Rines introduced Sanchez to her corner of the art world and serves as a mentor to the budding curator. In times of distress, Reines let Sanchez sleep in the back room of the gallery. Not that Sanchez seems to be sleeping a lot, as she cobble together internships, gigs, and even networking in a lesbian backgammon league to earn a living — and the seeds of a career. It paid off.
At this point, Sanchez seemed to know everyone. Why doesn’t she? She has worked or interned at over a dozen galleries and even managed some odd fashion jobs. “I learned a lot…” During our interview someone shouted “Daisy, Daisy, Daisy!” from the street loud enough that we could hear him from the back room, hers Friend Sabrina Fuentes from the indie band Pretty Sick came over to say hello.
“I met this guy at a party and he said, ‘Daisy, you’re a legend!’ I said, ‘I’m not a legend, I’m a rumor,'” Sanchez said modestly with a smile. “But it’s not about self-reliance to boost myself. Every opportunity I have has come from people who have helped me along the way.”
In 2016, Sanchez traveled to London to study curating at the prestigious art school Central Saint Martins. The decision was practical to a degree: UK universities were cheaper and only took three years. And because she attended meetings in the years following Brexit, the dollar-sterling exchange rate was clearly in her favor. That didn’t stop Sanchez from continuing his cycle of gigs and internships at school, finding a job at the Soft Opening Gallery in London.
“I’m a bad student mainly because I’m at work. They don’t have an attendance policy,” she said.
Sanchez’s presence in the arts and fashion has produced more and better gigs, such as helping luxury fashion house Balenciaga arrange collaborations with artists. She took a break from school and went to Paris to look for opportunities until her visa application in France had clearly failed.
“In order to hire an international full-time employee, companies have to demonstrate that there is no more qualified person in the EU,” she said. “I was 20 years old and didn’t have a degree. So it’s hard to say ‘yes, this is the best person for the job.'”
Sanchez returned to Central Saint Martins, but it didn’t take long for COVID-19 to emerge. The pandemic and the lockdown that followed have thinned Sanchez’s valuable support system. Sanchez had cancer as a child, which left her with a weakened immune system. The odd jobs that have long kept her afloat are no longer viable. Meanwhile, her mother has moved out of the US, which means she has no home in the US to return to once her student visa expires. She briefly attended the Courtauld Institute, another prestigious UK arts landmark, to extend her visa, but, in her words, ended up “losing the election”. The stress of her situation made it difficult for her to focus on her studies.
Courtesy Entrance Gallery
During these dark times, she did what only she could. Sanchez started curating exhibitions in her bedroom in England, initiated by an artist friend who needed to add a gallery show to her CV to add to her own immigration application.
By appointment only, newly completed gallery space Daisy’s room Will eventually host the likes of Brie Moreno, Inez Valentine (whose works music, dance, nicole (2022) and Pushkin(2022) was listed ordinary pursuit) and Gail Schindler.
“We put mattresses in the living room,” she said. “My roommate helped me hang the piece in my little room.”
Entrance founder and director Louis Shannon noticed and they started a relationship that would lead to ordinary pursuit.
“Part of the idea for this exhibition came from thinking about what the contemporary art market has overlooked, such as video, photography, works on paper that have not been given the same respect or market value as painting,” said Sanchez. It’s because of archival conundrums and exclusivity issues…but at the end of the day, it’s much harder to make a living as an artist working in a trivial medium.”
However, according to Sanchez, artists find themselves in a situation where they take commercial work, which is actually paid, but considered trivial and cheap.
“So many people understand [George] When Condo was painting the Birkin for Kanye, Kim posted it.Thank God, Marc Jacobs collaborates with Louis Vuitton [Takashi] Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince,” said Sanchez, who changed the mainstream view in the art world that artists who make toys or accessories are the scourge of art.
“If the public sees this piece, if it goes into this larger circulation, who cares if it’s a handbag embellishment?”
But, for all this talk of money, Sanchez is always looking for something free: room to do more curatorial work. Currently, she presents a new piece every week in the window next to Theta Gallery.
“I’m always looking for someone to do something for me,” she said.
