the worst gallery meeting I ever walked into
sure look we've all got a horror story or two about walking into a gallery with your portfolio and knowing inside five minutes it was a dead loss. give us the worst one.
I'll go first. maybe eight years ago, still pretty green, got a meeting with this gallery in a city I won't name. small place, grand, but the fella running it spent the whole time looking at his phone while I was pulling prints out. didn't ask me one question about the work. then he told me he could "make me" if I was willing to "compromise a little" which turned out to mean make stuff that looked like the fella three doors down who was selling. I packed up my stuff, thanked him, and he actually said "are you sure" like I was the one wasting his time. still makes my blood warm thinking about it.
what about ye? ever walk into a meeting and wish you'd stayed in bed?
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Oh I've got one. Smaller city in northern Greece, maybe ten years ago. Gallery owner was this older guy, very serious reputation, I was nervous but excited. Walk in, he looks at my portfolio for maybe thirty seconds, pushes it back across the desk and says "this is very nice but you'd sell more if you did religious subjects. Tourists want the Virgin Mary, they want saints. This modern stuff, nobody buys it."
Didn't ask about the technique, the materials, the process, nothing. Just assumed he knew my market better than I did based on looking at four photos. I packed up and left. He called me two weeks later saying he'd reconsidered and I told him I'd already moved on.
The bit that stuck with me was how sure he was. No curiosity at all. Just knew what art should be. That kind of confidence is dangerous in a gallerist, I think. You want someone who can see what you're doing, not someone who already decided what they want to sell.
Oh that's infuriating. The gall of it, "tourists want the Virgin Mary" like you've never considered who buys art in your own town. And the way he barely looked, that's what gets me. They decide everything about you from the first few seconds and then act like they're doing you a favour by telling you what to paint differently.
I haven't had the gallery version but I had a woman at a market once tell me my portraits would sell better if I made them "happier, more smiling." Like that's the part I was missing. Just paint what they tell you and all will be fine. Did he really call after you?🙂
he did yeah, called me twice. first time I let it ring. second time I answered and he started in again about how I'd be mad not to take his offer, said he'd had "serious interest" from another printer who was happy to do the Virgin Mary stuff and I'd lose my chance. I told him best of luck with that fella and hung up. sure the Virgin Mary's grand but she's not the only thing in the box.
the market woman though, "happier, more smiling", I'm sorry that's gas. did she want you to go round the stalls adjusting everybody's mouths with a brush? like a travelling dentist for portraits. some people think art's just the thing you'd like to look at over your cornflakes and they can't see past it.
ah the bougainvillea detail, that's gas. the thing about the religious subjects suggestion too, it's the confidence of it, isn't it? the absolute certainty that you haven't thought about your own work, your own market, your own reasons for making, and he's the one to set you straight in thirty seconds flat. I'd have loved to see his face if you'd said "grand, I'll do you a Virgin Mary with a hare at her feet and a blackbird on her shoulder, see how the tourists get on with that."