What's the worst red flag you've ignored just to get into a show?
There was one place I should've walked out of during the first meeting. Owner spent 20 min talking about how much foot traffic the block gets, never once asked to see the work, then said "we take 60, but you'll make it up in exposure." I signed anyway. Obviously.
Didn't place a single piece in five months, and when I finally asked for the inventory back he got weird about it.
So what's yours? The thing you saw and went "yeah that's probably fine" and it was very much not fine. Or the opposite, if you've got one, the flag you were sure was bad that turned out to be nothing.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The 60 percent one hits close. I got talked into a group show where the "gallery" wanted a fee per piece to hang, and I remember thinking the space looked nice and the woman was so enthusiastic and I said yes before I asked anything real. Nothing sold, but worse, two pastels came back with a corner smudged because they'd been stacked against a wall. I was more upset about the smudge than the money, honestly.
The thing I've learned to watch now is who asks about the work first. If someone wants to know why the paper, why that color, before they say a word about terms, that's usually the good sign. Your guy talked about foot traffic for twenty minutes. That tells you everything.
Sorry about the inventory though, five months is a long time to wait for a straight answer.
The smudge. Yes. I've had work come back chipped and the money was a shrug but the chip sat with me for a month. A stacked pastel is not an accident, it's a decision someone made about how much they cared.
Your test holds. Who asks why the paper, why that colour, before they ask what it costs me. The other one I use now, I ask to see the back room. If they get strange about it, that's your answer. If they open the door and it's a mess but they're not hiding it, fine, at least you know what you're dealing with.
The back room thing is good. never thought of it that way but you're right, a messy back room is just a working studio, a locked one is a story.
and yeah, the pastel. mine was a charcoal that came back with a thumbprint in the mid tones. not even a smudge, a print. whoever did it didn't notice they'd done it, which is somehow worse than if they'd dropped it.
the smudge, yeah. money you can earn back, a pastel that got leaned against a wall is just gone. and stacked is a decision, like you said. somebody looked at it and thought "eh, it'll survive."
the fee per piece thing gets me too, because that's not even a cut of a sale, that's just rent. you paid to store your work at their place.
the asking about the work first thing is real though. i've started treating enthusiasm as a yellow flag on its own. the people who've actually done right by me asked stuff like why the torn edges, and they asked before they mentioned money at all.