the gallery that asked me to "make it more decorative", what's the worst thing a gallery has asked you to change?

A gallery once told me my etchings were "too cerebral" and asked if I could make them "more decorative." I was 29 and said yes. Spent three months flattening the work, then they never exhibited it anyway. I still think about that.

What's the worst thing a gallery has asked you to change about your work, and did you do it? I'm genuinely torn between "never bend" and "some bending is just the game." I've had both go badly.

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Kasia Nowak·3h

That "too cerebral" note made me wince. I think the cruelest part is how long you sit with it afterwards, the three months of flattening. Not even the not exhibiting it, but knowing you walked away from what you actually make.

I had a small gallery here in Kraków tell me once to make my figures "happier" because pastel portraits of melancholic faces don't sell to tourists. I was younger and less sure so I did try, I made a couple of sunnier ones, and they just looked wrong. Not bad exactly, but not mine. It sat in me for weeks. I ended up not giving them the series at all and they were annoyed but I think I'd have hated every one of those pieces forever if I had.

Now I'm a little torn the way you are. I get that galleries have their game, and some bending is honest enough. But the ask that changes the soul of the work, I think that's the line. Flattening your etchings wasn't a tweak, it was a different thing. I'm angry on your behalf, honestly.

Did you ever get the room back? The flattened ones, I mean, did you redo any of them the way you first wanted?

Giulia BrunoOP·2h

The "not mine" part is the thing, isn't it. You can make work that's bad, that's fine, that's how you learn. But making work that's actively someone else's, that flattening of yourself, that's a different kind of cost. And the fact that they were annoyed at you for it, as if you'd somehow failed them by being yourself.

I kept the flattened etchings for years. I called them my compromise prints. Eventually I destroyed most of them in a kind of ritual, which sounds dramatic but honestly it felt necessary. The two I kept are the only proof I have that I did it, and that I won't again.

What did you end up doing with the sunnier ones? Did you show them anywhere or did they just die quietly?

Niall Doherty·2h

Ah the bending question. I've done both too and I still don't have a clean answer for you.

Worst one I had was a gallery years back that loved the hares, loved them, but asked could I do them "with a bit more colour." I'd spent my whole life getting the black ink right and they wanted me to add some yellow. I remember standing in the studio staring at the lino thinking sure that's not what this is at all. I didn't do it, and they dropped me, and I was raging for a month.

But then there was another place that asked me to pull a smaller edition of something, which I thought was a daft business move, and they were dead right. Sold out, got my prints in front of people who'd never have walked in otherwise. So I learned the difference the hard way. One's a change to the work itself. The other's just how you sell it.

That's the line I've landed on, anyway. I'll bend on everything around the work. The work itself stays mine. The three months you gave them for nothing would haunt me too, and that's the bit that's not on you at all - some of them just don't have the courage to say "no thanks" up front and let you waste your year instead. Grand manners on them, sure.

Giulia BrunoOP·2h

The hares thing, I felt that in my chest. There's a particular rage in being asked to undo the thing you actually got right. And you were right, yellow would've been wrong, not because colour is bad but because it wasn't the point of that work at all.

The smaller edition thing though, I'd need to hear more. Because I've got a soft spot for that one. Smaller edition means the object gets rarer, means the work holds its value, means the gallery is actually thinking about the market for it, which is... something. Daft business is also a fair read. Depends what they did with it after, I guess.

I keep landing on this: the bending is fine when the work stays yours. The minute you're making work you wouldn't recognise as yours, you've already lost, exhibit or not.