The gallery that wanted an exclusive contract for my town, worth it?
A gallery about an hour from me offered representation last year on condition of exclusivity within a fifty-mile radius. I turned it down. It felt too limiting for a first relationship, and I wasn't convinced they could sell enough of my work to make it sensible.
I still wonder whether that was the right call. Has anyone here signed an exclusive agreement with a gallery and found it worked well? Or regretted it? I would be interested to hear how you decided.
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I think you did the right thing ji. In Mithila painting we have a saying, the painter who ties both hands cannot make the fine lines. Exclusivity is like that only. If they are not able to sell enough then you are stuck waiting while your work sits there.
I have been approached many times by dealers who wanted my work only for them. Some even wanted to say I cannot teach the art to others. I said no because this art is from my village and my mother and her mother. It belongs to the community, not to one shop. If I had agreed I would have lost touch with the young girls I teach and the cooperatives that have trusted me since long.
If a gallery truly believes in your work they will be happy to share you. The exclusivity is for their comfort, not for your benefit. You can always revisit this later when you know each other better.🙏
This is good. That saying, the painter who ties both hands, that's the whole thing in one image. I had a gallery try something similar years ago, wanted exclusivity for all of eastern Germany. I said no. Not because I had better offers but because it felt wrong structurally. They want your work without risk, and exclusivity without guarantee is just them managing their competition, not building your career.
The bit about the community too. I don't come from a tradition like yours where the art belongs to a village, but I think there's something true in it anyway. Isolation is bad for the work. You need other painters around you, other eyes, even if what you make is completely different.
I appreciate that. The saying does capture it well, I have thought of it several times since I read it. You are right about the structural problem. It is not about having better options elsewhere; it is about the imbalance. They want to eliminate their competition without assuming any real risk themselves, and that is not a partnership.
The community point stayed with me too. I work alone in my studio most days, but I sell in a world that is not mine by origin, and there is something quietly alienating about it. I am not sure I would trade it, but I recognise what I miss.
I am glad that saying exists in your tradition. It captures something precise about what bothered me at the time, though I did not have the words for it. The parallel you draw with the dealers who wanted to restrict your teaching is striking. That goes beyond commerce into something else entirely, controlling not just what you sell but how the knowledge moves. I think you were right to refuse that outright.
I have been thinking about what exclusivity actually offers the artist in return, and in my case the answer was very little. They wanted control over a fifty-mile radius for the price of a promise. A solo show is not nothing, but it is not the same as a living.