What's the worst red flag you've seen in a gallery before you even showed your work?

Mine: I walked into a place in Athens years ago, portfolio under my arm, and the woman behind the desk never once looked at me. Not rude, just entirely elsewhere, talking on the phone about a delivery. I stood there maybe four minutes and left. Later a friend told me the owner only shows work by people he drinks with. Fine, but say it with your face.

The one that actually got me was a space that wanted 60 percent and a fee for the "opening event." I asked what the fee covered. Nobody knew.

So what's yours? The thing that told you in the first two minutes this is not going to work. Doesn't have to be dramatic, the small ones are more useful to hear.

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Mateo Serrano·4d

The desk thing gets me because it costs them nothing to look up. Mine was a place where the person showing me around kept touching the pieces on the shelf and saying "we could never sell this here" about literally their own stock. Like, if you're already apologizing for your own taste, what are you going to say about mine.

The opening fee kills me though. I'd have asked for a receipt just to watch their face.

Dimitra VasilakisOP·4d

Touching the stock while telling you it can't sell. That's a person who has already given up and wants you to join them. I would have asked which pieces they'd keep if the money didn't matter. Watch them try to find one.

And yes, the receipt. I almost want to go back and ask for it now, years later, just to see the face. Probably worth the trip to Athens.

Inês Costa·4d

The four minutes of not being looked at would have done it for me too. Mine was different: a gallery that smelled of new paint and nothing else, every frame on the wall perfectly level, and the person there told me they "rotate the collection every month" and asked for a list of my works before I had said a word about what I make. I remember thinking this is a shop, not a place for work. Nothing wrong with a shop, but I need to know which one I am walking into. The fee for the "opening event" is the one that would have stayed with me, though. Did you ever find out what it covered?

Dimitra VasilakisOP·4d

A list of works before they know what you make. That tells you everything, they are buying stock, not work. The new paint smell is the giveaway too, nothing has ever lived in that room.

And no, I never found out. I asked twice, got "it's for the event" both times, which is not an answer, it's a shrug with words. I walked. I still wonder if someone less tired than me that year would have got a straight answer out of them.

Dimitra VasilakisOP·4d

The perfectly level frames bothered me more than the paint smell, honestly. Nothing on that wall was ever taken down and put back up by someone with a reason. I know a woman who ran a space like that, the frames never shifted one millimetre in three years, and she was proud of it. I said what do you do when a piece sells, she said we have spares in the back. A shop, like you say. No shame in it, but I want to know before I unwrap anything.

And no, never found out. Two of us asked, got two different answers, then a third answer the next week. At that point the fee is not a fee, it is a test of how much you want it. I said no thanks and spent the money on smalti.