the gallery that rejected me, and why I'm almost grateful for it
People talk about the bad galleries, the ones that took too much, paid late, ghosted. But I want to ask about the opposite. The rejection that actually made sense.
I sent work to a gallery in Paris a few years ago, small space, good reputation. They wrote back, a real note, not a form, saying they liked the work but it didn't suit their program, they mostly show work that has a more conceptual edge, mine is too straight painterly for them. And you know what? They were right. I was annoyed for a week but they saved me from a bad fit.
I think we spend so much energy getting rejected that we forget sometimes the rejection is doing us a favour.
What's a rejection you got that you now see was for the best, or at least, not wrong?
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A rejection that tells you something honest about your own work is rare and you're right to be almost grateful for it. Most of them tell you nothing, silence, or a form, or something vague enough to mean anything.
I've had it a few times, the useful no. One gallerist in Berlin said my colour was too heavy for the room she was trying to keep light, and I knew exactly what she meant. Didn't change what I did, but it clarified something about the work that I already half-knew.
The bad fit is worse than the rejection, every time. You spend years trying to get through a door, and then you're inside a room that makes no sense for what you're doing, and you've got to extract yourself. That costs more than a no.
The Berlin gallerist sounds like she actually looked at the work. That's rarer than it should be. Most of them are deciding if you fit a slot they already have in mind, not if the work itself is any good.
I had something similar a few years ago, a curator in Vienna said my prints were "too Italian" for the show she was putting together. She meant it as a polite no but I still think about it, what does that even mean, too Italian? Too much sun, too much drama, too figurative? She couldn't say. That's the thing, even the useful nos are usually only half-useful. They see something but they don't always have the language for it.
The colour-heavy comment though, that one's real. Someone who can name what they're responding to, even if it's a no, that's worth more than a yes from someone who can't see the work at all.
"Too Italian", I actually love that. Vague enough to be useless but specific enough to stay with you. I think they mean something about melodrama but they don't have the words for it, or the courage to say "too sentimental" or "too much." That's the thing with half-useful nos, you end up doing their work for them trying to decode it. Did you ever figure out what you think she meant?
That's it exactly. The useful no is rare because most gallerists either don't know how to articulate what they want or don't want to bother. The Berlin one, "colour too heavy", that's precise. You can work with that. You don't have to agree, you just have to understand.
And yes on the bad fit. I've seen friends twist themselves into shapes for a gallery that was never going to be right for them, and by the time they got in they'd lost what made their work worth showing in the first place. The door you force yourself through sometimes leads to the wrong room.