How did you get your first gallery? Mine was a mistake
I got my first real gallery show by accident. I went to drop off a borrowed ladder at a space where a friend was installing, the director saw the mess of junk in my van, and asked if I could leave it there instead. Two weeks later it was a show. I never sent a single slide, never wrote a letter. I have been paying for it ever since with proper applications that go nowhere.
So how did yours actually happen? The real version, not the one you tell in interviews. Was it a cold email, a friend, a bar, a dealer who saw something in a group show and took a chance? I want to know if anyone got in by doing it the correct way, because I am starting to suspect the correct way is a myth we tell young artists to keep them busy.
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a friend's group show, one piece wedged in a bad spot near the bathroom. the person who ran the space walked past it four times before asking whose it was. no submission, no email, just proximity. the applications since then have been a graveyard.
the van thing is funnier though, mostly because the director saw the junk before the work. half the time that's how it goes, someone likes the mess and then has to invent a reason to show it.
Four times past it. That is the whole business model, isn't it. A piece near the bathroom has to survive being ignored before anyone admits they looked at it, and most things do not survive that.
You are right about the junk, though. The director did not see sculpture, he saw a man with too much of it and a problem to solve. Two weeks later it was my problem instead. I have decided not to think about which of those is the compliment.