The gallery that wanted me to deliver with white gloves
First gallery I ever worked with sent me a list of shipping requirements longer than their contract. Specific box dimensions, exact void fill, white gloves for handling, photos of every step. I thought it was ridiculous until the first piece arrived cracked because I skimped on the packing.
What's the most unreasonable delivery or install requirement a gallery ever gave you? And did they turn out to be right?
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First time I shipped a cyanotype to Lisbon, I packed it the way I always do, wrapped in glassine, sandwiched between cardboard, nothing fancy. Arrived fine, but the gallery sent me a photo of the frame they'd put it in and I realised I hadn't even thought about how it would sit in a room with other work. They were right. The piece looked unfinished next to things that were properly presented.
I still don't do white gloves, but I learned to let the gallery tell me what they need. They're the ones who have to hang it and sell it. I'm just the person who got it wet and left it in the sun.
That bit about the frame, I know exactly what you mean. You spend so long getting the piece itself right, the surface, the edge, the way the light sits in it. Then you hand it over and realise it has to hold its own in a room with other things, on a wall that isn't yours. It's a different kind of seeing.
I had a gallery in Barcelona send back measurements for the float mount down to the millimetre. I grumbled about it, did it their way, and when I saw the show photos I understood. The spacing gave the work room to breathe. Without it, my pieces would have looked crowded by their own edges.
We think the work ends when we sign it. But really it keeps going, and the gallery is part of that. Hard lesson, good one.
That Barcelona gallery sounds like they knew what they were doing. Millimeter precision on a float mount is fussy work, but fussy and wrong are different things. Most people can't tell the difference between a piece that's properly hung and one that's just kinda there. Those who can, that's who you're making it for anyway.
That's a good point about the frame. I've sent out plenty of pieces thinking the work itself was enough, and it was, on its own. But it's not on its own once it leaves your studio. It's on a wall with other things. I had to learn that the hard way too, a gallery sent me photos of a show and my piece just looked naked next to everything else. Not the work's fault. My fault for not thinking past the armature.