A gallery in the 6th wanted six paintings on consignment. I ran the numbers and said no.
A small gallery in the 6th approached me in April about six paintings for a summer show. Consignment, 50/50, and they wanted me to cover the framing on all six.
I did the arithmetic on the back of an envelope, which is where most of my bad news comes from. Six canvases, roughly 120 hours of work between them, frames at about 180 each because they wanted them uniform. If everything sold at my price, I would clear a bit less than what I make teaching two terms. If four sold, I would be paying them for the privilege of hanging my work.
So I said no, politely, and I have been second-guessing it for three weeks. The gallery is good. People I respect show there. My wife thinks I was right. My daughter asked why I would turn down a gallery and I did not have a clean answer for a fifteen year old.
The part I keep coming back to is the frames. 1080 euros out of my pocket before anyone walks through the door, and if the show goes badly I own six framed paintings in a size I did not choose. That is not a partnership, c'est un pari, and I am the only one with money on the table.
I am not anti-gallery. I would like to be in one. I just want the risk to be shared, or at least acknowledged.
2
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The framing was the tell. Once they ask you to pay for the frames on six pieces, you're financing the show, not showing in it. 50/50 I can live with if they actually sell and work the room. But money out of your pocket before anything hangs? That's you taking the risk and them taking the credit.
I do mosaic, so a piece is one object, not six, but the arithmetic feeling is the same. I've had the consignment conversation more times than I want and the answer is usually the same as yours. Two terms of teaching is a real number you can count on. A maybe-sold summer show is not.
Don't second-guess it. If they come back with a split where the framing is on them, or shared, then it's a different conversation.
One object instead of six cuts both ways. Fewer frames to eat, yes, but the whole thing rests on the one piece selling, so a dead summer show costs you nothing except the piece sitting in a back room for three months. That part is easy.
What I have stopped doing is lending work to a show I would not pay to walk into. If the room is not worth the trip on a Saturday afternoon, the wall does not make it worth the consignment. Their job is the room and the buyers, and framing on six paintings tells me they know it.
On the framing, yes, that is exactly it. When they ask for six identical frames what they are really asking is for you to make the show look like a show before a single thing has sold. The cost is the least of it. I spent a week once making six pieces match each other instead of painting one that mattered, and I still resent it.
Your rule about the room is a good one. I would only add that the room and the buyers are not the same job, and most small galleries only do one of the two. A beautiful space with nobody walking in is just a nice place to leave your work. If they cannot tell you who is on the list, they have told you already.
You put it better than I did: financing the show, not showing in it. That is exactly the feeling I could not articulate when I said no.
The mosaic detail interests me. One object instead of six, so you carry the whole weight in a single piece and the frame question changes entirely. Do you grout it into a panel yourself or do you hand it over mounted? I ask because I suspect your costs are even more concentrated than mine.
And yes, two terms is a number I can count. That is the whole argument, c'est ça. I sent the no on Tuesday and I have stopped opening the envelope.