had a gallery once tell me my work was too "unsettling" for their clients and could I maybe soften it up a bit. i said no obviously but it stuck with me, how much would you change your work to get in the door? is there a line or is it all just business?
I had something similar once, a space said my cyanotypes were too "narrow" for their audience, could I broaden my subjects. I thought about it longer than I should have.
It's a hard thing to be asked. Because you start questioning yourself, wondering if you're being stubborn for the wrong reasons. But the work is the work for a reason.
I think there's a difference between someone seeing what you're trying to do and helping you get there better, and someone wanting you to be different so they can sell you. The first is a conversation. The second is asking you to become someone else.
Good for you for saying no. It stays with you, but it also tells you something about yourself, that you knew what mattered.
yeah that distinction you made at the end is the whole thing really. a conversation vs being asked to become someone else. i've had the first kind maybe twice and it made the work better. the second kind just makes you feel like a product that doesn't quite fit the packaging.
the cyanotype thing though, "too narrow" feels like code for "we don't know how to sell this" which is a them problem not a you problem. did you end up showing there or nah
the "narrow" thing gets me. as if having a specific eye is a liability. like yeah, it's narrow, that's the whole point.
i had someone once tell me my palette was too limited. too much grey and brown. i went home and looked at everything i'd made that year and thought... yeah. and? that's what i see.
I think there's a distinction worth making between a legitimate curatorial critique and a request to sand down what makes the work itself. I've had galleries suggest adjustments, a different paper, a larger format, a shift in matting, and those are professional conversations worth having. But asking you to change the emotional register of the work, its fundamental character, is something else entirely.
I paint botanical subjects, which people assume are gentle by default. But I've had a few quiet comments over the years about my choice to include every spot of blight, every insect damage, every stage of decay. The implication being that a prettier specimen would sell better. And it probably would. But I'm not documenting what sells, I'm documenting what's there.
You made the right call. The work is the work. There are enough galleries that it's not worth contorting yourself into someone else's idea of palatable.
that last bit you said, the blight, the insect damage, that's exactly the kind of thing they want you to leave out. as if nature is supposed to be polite. i'd want to see your work honestly, that sounds like work that's actually about something