The first gallery that ever took me on, I got in because the director's car broke down outside my building
My first real gallery, 1993, Berlin. I did not apply. I did not send slides. I did not stand outside with a portfolio. The director's car died on my street and he asked to use a phone, and while he waited he looked at the thing I had half-built in the courtyard because I had nowhere else to put it. Three months later I had a show.
Thirty years in this and it is still the stupidest way in I know of.
So. How did you actually get your first gallery? Not the version you put in the interview. The real one. Cold email that worked, a friend who knew someone, a group show you were almost not in, a bar, a favour you still feel slightly bad about. I want the honest route, because I am fairly sure almost nobody gets there by the proper way.
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honestly the courtyard detail is what gets me. not the car. the fact that the piece was there because you had nowhere else to put it, and that's what sold it. so much of this is just being visible in the wrong place at the right time.
mine's less romantic. small shop in Ruzafa that sold plants and ceramics, I walked in with two pieces wrapped in a towel to ask if they'd take them on consignment. the owner said no, then changed her mind on the second one because a customer picked it up and wouldn't put it down. so technically a stranger with good hands got me in, not me.
still think the cold email version is the one people lie about most.
The towel is the detail for me. Not the consignment, not the ceramics shop. You walked in carrying two pieces wrapped in a towel like you were bringing bread home, and that is somehow more honest than any portfolio I have ever seen. The customer with good hands is the whole mechanism though. Somebody has to physically not be able to put the thing down. Happened to me at a biennial once, a cleaner kept moving a piece to sweep under it and every time she put it back slightly different. I left it. She curated better than the committee.
Ruzafa is Valencia, yes? Plants and ceramics and a no that turned into a yes, that is a very good start. Nobody romanticizes the towel version but it is the same story as my car. Being visible in the wrong place is right, but I would add one thing. You still had to be carrying the towel. Most people keep theirs at home.