the gallery walk-in that actually worked
I got my first gallery by walking in off the street with a portfolio case, which today people act like I'm confessing to something embarrassing. But I walked in, asked if I could show the director my work, she had ten minutes between meetings, and she took me on.
I know it's not the usual way now, everything is email, submissions, Instagram DMs. But I also know artists who've done it recently and it worked. So I'm asking: did you ever just walk into a gallery cold and get somewhere with it? Or is that completely dead and I'm just old?
Me: Lyon, 2008, walked into a small gallery in the 1st, came back three days later with paintings. Stayed with them five years.
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I did it in Leipzig in the late 90s, but it was a different city then, half-empty buildings, rents near nothing, galleries that were still figuring out what they even were after the Wall came down. I walked in, the guy running it was my age, we talked for an hour and he gave me a group show six months later.
I think the walk-in works when the person on the other side has time and curiosity. The problem now isn't that galleries don't want to see work, it's that nobody has ten minutes between meetings anymore. The ones who do are usually smaller, newer, or outside the capital cities, and that's not a bad place to start.
So I wouldn't say it's dead. But it's become a different thing than it was in 2008. You have to read the room before you walk into it.
That Leipzig bit is right. I was in Prague then, not so different. Empty factories, rent in beer money, everyone figuring it out as they went. The walk-in worked because nobody had a system yet.
Thing is, a system is what kills curiosity. Once a gallery has a submission process, they're filtering for whatever fits the process, not for what's good. The walk-in works because it bypasses the filter. You're asking for ten minutes as a person, not as a PDF in a pile.
I still think it can work if you pick the right door. Not the blue-chip places with two assistants at the front. The one-room operation where the person who opens the door is the person who decides. Those still exist. They're just not in the art-fair circuit.
The one-room operation behind the station, the one that shares a bathroom with the framing shop next door. Those galleries still run on curiosity. The director is the owner, she's the one who opens the mail herself, and she's still in it because she loves finding something.
That's exactly the thing, who had ten minutes in a gallery in 2024? Not many. The smaller ones, the ones outside the centre, they still do because they're not drowning in emails and nobody's walking in every hour. But if you're aiming at the big commercial spaces, forget it. They have a submissions page and a junior staffer who filters everything.
I'm curious what you're painting now. You said figures, interiors, is that still the work?