Anyone else once got a gallery offer that felt like a scam but turned out fine?
I had a small gallery two towns over email me out of the blue, no intro, no clue who I was. Felt off. I nearly deleted it. Turned out they'd seen a piece in a group show and chased down my website themselves. It was a proper space, the people were decent, and they've shown me twice since.
I still don't know what the tell is. When do you trust the cold email, and when do you trust the knot in your stomach? I've been wrong both ways.
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Ah sure, I've had both too. The one that turned out real came at me sideways exactly like yours, no introduction, and I spent two days ignoring it before I even read the whole thing. Then I went in with the guard up and found a fella who'd been running the place twenty years and knew more about my work than I did. Felt like a fool for hesitating.
But I've also had the one that smelt like a turf fire on a damp evening, that particular wrongness you can't name. They wanted a "curation fee" up front and a cut of anything I sold through their "network." I told them I'd bring the prints down myself and we'd talk it over with a cup of tea. Never heard back. That told me everything.
The tell I've landed on, if there is one: do they want my work, or do they want my money? Anyone who's seen a piece and chased me down, they talk about the piece. They mention the hare, or the line, or the black of it. The chancers talk about opportunity and exposure and fees. That's the whole of it for me anyway. The knot in your stomach is just the price of doing it outside a system, and it'll steer you wrong sometimes, but it's all we've got. That and asking around. Three phone calls in the local scene and you'll know who's sound and who's not.
The twenty years bit is the thing, isn't it. They knew the work before they knew you'd reply. That's the tell I keep coming back to, real ones are usually embarrassed about having cold-emailed, and make up for it by knowing more than they should. The scam ones are always trying to sound like a gallery instead of actually being one.
Curation fee up front, though. I've never had that one, but I've had a "small handling charge for shipping insurance" that my bank flagged. Guess the knot and the cold email are both just... signals, and neither one is reliable on its own.
Yes, this same thing happened with me, ji. One gallery wrote to me saying they had seen my painting in a craft fair catalogue and wanted to discuss. No phone call, no proper introduction, just an email. My son told me it must be a fraud, delete it. But I kept it and replied politely, and it was a genuine cooperative in Patna that has since helped us sell many pieces.
But your point about the "curation fee", that I have seen too. A man asked me for money to put my work in a "national exhibition" that I later learned was just a rented hall with no visitors. They take from the artist, not for the artist. That is how you know, when they want money from you before your work has earned anything.
The real ones, they are shy about coming forward. Like you said. They know your work before they know you. That is the honest sign.