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what's the one thing in a gallery contract you read and immediately knew you weren't signing? for me it was exclusivity within the city. i get it, they don't want me selling out of my studio down the street, but i'm not locking myself to one space when rent is due and the other gallery two blocks over actually sells my stuff. ngl i asked them to strike it and they did, which told me more about them than the whole rest of the contract honestly. what's yours? the commission split that gave you pause, the "artist covers shipping" fine print, something weirder? tell me i'm the only one who's crossed stuff out like a toddler with a crayon.

Y'all ever sign a gallery contract and find something in it later that made your stomach drop? I got one sittin' in front of me right now, pretty standard-looking thing, and then way down at the bottom it says they keep 60% on any piece I sell to somebody they "introduced me to", forever. Even if I leave the gallery. Even if I run into that collector at the grocery store five years from now. I know I ought to have a lawyer read it before I sign. But I'm curious what you all found in a contract that made you stop and say wait a minute. Or what you wish you'd caught before you put your name on the line.

Early on, before I knew any better, I almost signed one where the gallery kept all reproduction rights to the work for twenty years. Twenty years. And the percentage was on the low end to begin with. My old mentor caught it and told me to walk, and I did. Lately I see more of the reverse, artists so scared of getting burned they won't sign anything, and they miss out on decent rooms. What's the worst thing you've seen in a contract, or the clause that made you turn around and leave? I want specifics, not "they wanted too much commission." What actually got slipped in?

had a gallery reach out, loved the work, wanted to move fast. then just... nothing. kept emailing. "oh right, sending it over today." took six weeks. by then i'd lost interest. anyone else had one that was all enthusiasm until you needed something in writing? how long is too long before you walk?

A gallery about an hour from me offered representation last year on condition of exclusivity within a fifty-mile radius. I turned it down. It felt too limiting for a first relationship, and I wasn't convinced they could sell enough of my work to make it sensible. I still wonder whether that was the right call. Has anyone here signed an exclusive agreement with a gallery and found it worked well? Or regretted it? I would be interested to hear how you decided.

I'm not talking about the obvious ones like "we need money upfront." I mean the small thing you noticed in the meeting that made your stomach go tight. For me it was the contract. Two pages, and no line saying when it ends. I asked, and the owner said "oh, we don't really do that, it's a relationship, not a lease." He said it very nicely. I still did not sign it, and then I spent two weeks wondering if I had just thrown away my one chance 🙃 So tell me yours. The thing they said, or the thing that was missing from the paper. Partly because I want to know I was right to walk, and partly because I have another meeting in two weeks and I would like to know what to watch for 😅

my first gallery show, I was so desperate to be taken seriously I signed a contract that locked me into giving them 60% on everything for a year and let them hold my work for 90 days after the show ended. didn't even read it properly, just wanted them to like me. should've walked out the door. 60%!! I was making like $200 a painting then. what's the thing you signed or agreed to that you look back on and can't believe you did? a commission with no deposit? letting someone keep your work "on consignment" for way too long? tell me I'm not the only one who said yes when I should've said absolutely not.

I'll go first, so nobody has to be the brave one. A gallery in a town I won't name took six of my paintings on consignment. The contract was one page. One page is already a flag, I know, but I wanted it. Then came the emails asking me to reduce my prices "for the local market," then the suggestion that I might paint a few smaller, more "giftable" pieces. I said yes to all of it. Two years, one sale, and I got the work back with a scratch across the face of the best one. Mine was a one-page contract and a gallery that wanted to negotiate my prices. What was yours? The thing that made your stomach drop but you signed anyway because they said yes, and yes is rare.

I've shown with the same gallery in Berlin for twelve years. When we started, I signed their standard agreement without really reading the resale and secondary-market clauses. Stupid, I know. You think you're being gracious, above the business, and you're really just being careless with your own livelihood. Last spring a collector who bought two big canvases from me in 2016 sold one at auction for nearly four times what he paid. Fine, that's his right, that's the market, whatever. But then I learned my contract gives the gallery a cut of that resale, a percentage that runs indefinitely. Not to me. To them. For a painting I made and they sold once, a decade ago. I did the math on it. That one resale paid them more than my last three new commissions combined. And I sat there feeling petty for even noticing, because they were good to me when I was nobody. But nobody works for free, and I have a family. I raised it with them, gently, at our last meeting. The director went a little quiet and then said we could "look at restructuring" for new works. New works. The two paintings already out there, nothing to be done. I don't know what I'm asking here. Maybe just that someone who's been at this longer than me tell me whether this is normal, whether I'm the fool for not having read the fine print at 34, or whether everybody learns this exact lesson the same way and at the same cost.

I'll go first and I'm a little ashamed. I was 26, atelier still in my legs, and a small gallery in a neighbouring city offered me a show. I signed the contract the same afternoon. Didn't read the exclusivity clause. Turned out I'd given them 18 months on all sales, including anything I sold privately, in any region in France. My first dealer taught me exactly one useful thing: that mistake. Who here signed something on the way up they'd never sign now? And what did it cost you, or what did you learn?

Signed the contract today for a room at the old tram depot in Holešovice. Four hundred kilos of salvaged cast-iron radiators, all of them from one demolished panelák block out in Ďáblice, they let me take the lot before the excavator came. I have been chasing this space for two years. Two years of emails that turned into one coffee that turned into nothing, and then out of nowhere the director calls me on a Tuesday and says the spring slot opened up. I am too old to be this nervous about a signature. My hand was steady, only my handwriting was bad, which is normal. I keep thinking about the man who let me in the building. He was maybe seventy, wore a tracksuit, did not care at all what I do. I told him I make art from discarded things. He looked at the radiators, looked at me, and asked if I wanted the sinks too. I said yes. Now I have to deal with the sinks. The whole thing will probably not work. That is the part nobody says out loud. But today it is a yes on paper, and I will take it.

Alright, I'll go first and it's a bit embarrassing. A small local gallery near me said they'd love to show my work, then handed me a sheet: I'd pay $250 for the wall space, plus I had to sell 6 pieces minimum or cover the difference. I said thanks and never went back. Now I keep wondering if I was being too proud, but my gut said run. So what's the red flag that made you back out of a gallery? A fee, a weird contract, them asking you to change your style, something with the commission? Give me yours, I want to know what to watch for.

I'm talking about the first place that ever hung your work where folks could actually walk up and look at it. Didn't have to be a gallery with a desk and a contract and a person who says "we'll be in touch." Mine was Miss Odessa's beauty shop off the highway. She had two big empty walls and she let me hang four quilts there in 1989, and I do believe I was prouder of that than anything since. Now that I think about it, that was really my first show. No opening, no wine, just ladies under the dryers saying mm-mm. So where was yours? Somebody's shop, a church hall, a bank lobby, a coffee house, a fence outside a festival? Tell me about it, I want to hear how it happened.

I'm always so careful, but the stories I hear! The last gallery I approached, they had my contract in a Word doc with tracked changes from 2007 still visible. Voila, a bad sign. What's the most obvious red flag you've spotted, the one that made you run?

I keep thinking about a contract I was offered years ago from a small gallery. It asked for 50% commission, exclusive representation within 200 miles, first refusal on everything I produced for two years, and the right to reproduce my work for their promotional use in perpetuity. I did not sign it. The owner seemed genuinely surprised. What is the worst contract term you have been presented with, and did you walk away or negotiate?

I'm thinking about the ones we turn down, not the ones we chase. I had a gallery recently, nice space, okay location, conversation went fine, then the contract came and they wanted 60%, plus I pay for the opening wine and the invitations. I walked. Maybe I'm too picky, maybe not. What's the gallery offer you actually refused? The one where the numbers or the terms made you step back.

I had a gallery keep two paintings for six months after a group show ended. Not sold, just... sitting there. When I finally pushed for them back, the excuse was the owner had been "reorganising storage." Sure. Worst for me was a gallery in Berlin that closed overnight and I never saw three pieces again. No insurance, no contract worth the paper, just a lesson I should have learned earlier. What's the worst a gallery has ever done with your actual work? Not the rudeness or the slow emails, I mean physically, with the pieces.

Two years ago I got my first gallery offer and was so thrilled I almost signed without reading the contract properly. Turned out they wanted 50% commission and the framing costs on me, plus exclusive rights for a region I didn't even know was in there. I walked away after a call with an artist friend who talked some sense into me. Which makes me wonder, has anyone here actually regretted saying yes to a gallery? Not the scammy ones, but a perfectly legit gallery that just turned out to be a bad fit? What made you finally walk out or ride it out? Mine: the exclusivity thing. Felt like being kept on a leash for a gallery that barely promoted me.

Back in the 90s a gallery in Berlin wanted to show my work. Signed a contract where I basically gave them everything for a year, no transparency on sales, no inventory list, nothing. I knew it was wrong when I read it. Signed anyway because I was hungry and flattered. Took me eighteen months and a lawyer to get my pieces back and I never saw a full accounting. What's the red flag you saw early and walked past anyway? Or the one you now spot in five seconds and refuse to work with.

okay who else has the "gallery that just sat on everything and never said a word" story i dropped off a series at a small space, she seemed genuinely into it, said she'd be in touch. eight months. i emailed twice, got vague replies. finally went in person and she'd forgotten my work was even there. just had it stacked in a back room collecting dust. no show, no interest, no nothing. took it home in a garbage bag. i know i should've had a contract. i know. what's your "i should have walked out the door" gallery moment