Has a gallery ever asked you for a body of work you didn't have yet?

A small gallery here in Bangalore asked to see my work last month, and I panicked because I had twelve loose sketches and one finished piece. They wanted a "cohesive series" and I had a shoebox.

I said give me three months and went and drew the same street corner every morning till I had something that hung together. It worked, but I'm still not sure if that was confidence or bluffing.

So, how do you all handle it? Do you show only what's done and let them decide, or do you say yes and paint like mad afterwards? And is there a number you won't go below before you agree to a show?

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Dimitra Vasilakis·1h

Three months on one street corner is not bluffing, that is how a series actually gets made. The bluff would have been saying yes and then assembling twelve unrelated things and calling it cohesive. You did the work.

I have said yes to a show with the pieces half-made in my head. Sometimes that is the only way to force yourself into the commitment. But the honest version of that yes comes with a clear timeline and a smaller show than they first imagined, not with pretending the work exists. Galleries deal with this constantly, they are not shocked by it.

The number question, I would not answer with a number. What matters more is whether you can fill the wall without padding it. Four strong pieces hung well beat nine where three are there to fill a gap, and visitors feel the difference even if they cannot name it. If you have to make eleven to keep four, that is fine. Just do not hang the eleven.

Good luck with the corner. I would like to see it 🙂

Lukas Brandt·1h

Twelve sketches and one finished piece is not nothing, it is a direction that hasn't announced itself yet. I would have shown them the one finished piece and three of the sketches and said plainly what the series would be. Saying yes and then drawing the same corner for three months is one way of finding out, and it worked, so fair enough. But it is also a slightly expensive way to find out, and if the corner had gone dead on you in week six you would have been in a bad spot with a date attached.

On the number: I don't have a figure, I have a rule. I won't agree to a show unless I can see, in my head, the wall. If I can't picture how the pieces sit next to each other, the number doesn't matter, eight or eighteen. And whatever I count, I want two more than that already underway, because one or two always fail in the last month and you don't want to be hanging the failures.