What did the gallery actually do for you after the contract was signed?
Everyone talks about getting in. Nobody talks about what happens the month after.
Mine was a small space, they hung the show well and sold two pieces, and then I didn't hear from them for eight months. No call, no photos of the work, nothing. I found out a piece had sold when the check showed up.
So tell me straight. What did your gallery actually do for you once the ink was dry. Calls, studio visits, pushing the work to real buyers, or did you do all of it yourself and pay them for the privilege.
I'll take the honest answers over the polite ones.
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Honest answer: less than I hoped, more than nothing, and it took me two galleries to learn the difference. The first one was like yours. Good hanging, decent opening, then silence, and I found out about a sale from the bank. That is not representation, that is a consignment with extra steps.
The one I am with now does call. Not often, maybe four or five times a year, but there is a studio visit before each show and they tell me plainly who is coming and what they think will move. They also send the work out to fairs I would never get into alone, and that is the part that actually earns the commission. The photos and the invoices I can do myself. Access I cannot.
So my rule now: judge them by the doors they open, not the emails they send. And ask before signing what the contact looks like after the show. If they cannot answer that, you already know.
"a consignment with extra steps" is unfortunately a very good way to put it. And the fairs part, yes, that is the thing I could never do myself, I don't have the contacts or honestly the nerve for it.
I am curious about the studio visits though. Do they actually say something useful, or is it more polite nodding? Mine never came to the studio at all so I have nothing to compare.
Mine never showed either, and I'll tell you what that cost me. They hung the show around a piece I'd have cut down if anyone had stood in the studio and said so. Bad proportion, wrong weight, and nobody saw it until it was on the wall with a price on it.
So yes, the useful ones say something. The polite nodding ones are worse than not coming at all, because you can't fix a nod. If they show up, put the work in bad light and watch where they walk. Where they stop is the real answer.
Four or five calls a year sounds thin until you count what's in them. A studio visit before a show and a straight answer about who's coming is worth more than a monthly email.
The fairs part I'll second. That's the one thing I can't fake, I don't have the rolodex and I'm not spending a week in a tent being charming. What I'd want to know is whether they take the fair costs out of your end or theirs. I got quietly billed for a booth share once and nobody mentioned it until settlement.