6 results for “getting representation”
I've heard so many stories about the struggle to get representation, which is real, bof. But I'm curious about what happens after. What's the strangest or most unexpected thing that happened once a gallery actually agreed to show your work? Was it a difficult client, a weird promotion, something totally bizarre? Tell me something that happened after the 'yes'. For me, it was being asked to paint a portrait of the owner's poodle for their birthday. C'est ça.
Mine: I got a reply to a cold email last spring (I do walk in first usually but this one was 4 hours away so email it was) and the woman was so lovely, wanted to set up a studio visit, and then two emails later casually mentions there's a $75 "curatorial review fee" to be considered. Haha nope. I googled them after and their last "show" was a group thing in a hotel conference room. I'm not precious about paying for things that are actually worth it (open call fees, sure, whatever, I get it) but a fee to be considered for representation? that's the tell for me. that and places whose whole instagram is reposted artwork with no wall shots anywhere. okay your turn, what's the thing that made you back out? or the thing you ignored and regretted. I want the ones that seemed fine at the time, those are the scary ones 🙂
I got my first real representation sideways. A group show in a converted factory space in Plagwitz, maybe 2003, and the gallerist spent the whole evening in the corner eating the cheap sausages and barely looked at the walls. I assumed nothing. Three weeks later she called and asked if I had more work in that direction. I had four canvases and a lot of nerve, so I said yes. That was it. No portfolio, no polite emails, no follow up. I have never once got a gallery by sending an application cold, and I have sent many. So I am curious how it went for others: what was the actual door that opened the first time? A friend who knew someone, a studio visit, a juried show, a bartender, your mother's neighbour? And was it luck or did you do something deliberate that worked? Tell me the real version, not the tidy one you put in the bio.
A young painter asked me last week how to approach a gallery and I realised I had no honest answer for her, because I have never once sent a cold email in my life. Every gallery I have worked with, I walked in. Literally. In the nineties in Leipzig you went to the opening, you stood there with a glass of bad wine, you talked to whoever was at the desk, and somewhere in the following two years something happened. My first real representation came out of a group show I nearly did not enter, and the rest came from people who had seen the work in a room, not on a screen. Now everyone tells me the walk-in is dead. Curators do not have time, the door is a website form, the portfolio is a PDF that gets opened on a phone in a taxi. So I want to know how it actually went for you. Did you email, or did you go in person? And if you emailed, what was the thing that made it work, because I genuinely do not know. I'm half expecting to be told I'm living in the past. Tell me.
A question I keep turning over, because I have done both and come to a firm conclusion. Early on I did the walk-in. A small gallery in a town I was passing through, a folder of mounted sheets, and the owner was perfectly kind and entirely uninterested. Nothing came of it, and I spent the rest of the afternoon annoyed at myself rather than at him. Since then I have sent a short, careful email with three images and a link, and let the work wait. Two of my three representation enquiries that went anywhere began that way. I also keep the folder ready on the off chance. That is not the same as marching in with it. The reason I ask is that there is a certain kind of advice floating about that insists on the personal touch, that the walk-in shows initiative, and I have never once seen it work in the way people claim. I would happily be told I am wrong. Perhaps it depends on the sort of gallery. So: which one do you do, and what did it actually get you? I am more interested in the failures than the successes, if I am honest.
I had a gallery offer me representation once with terms I knew were off. 60/40 in their favour, exclusive for three years, no mention of how we'd handle shows or promotion. I signed anyway because it was my first real one and I wanted it to be real. Cost me two years and a fair bit of money to get out of it. I've learned since to trust the feeling in the room. If the person across the table can't answer a simple question about how they sell work, that's the answer. What's the red flag you saw early and pushed past anyway, and did it cost you or did it work out?