Three Secrets of Gallery Representation

Check out the Tough on Art podcast episode on this topic here.

Warning: This is a lightly edited transcript of that podcast, so not grammatically correct in some spots!

As an artist, your primary goal should be getting your work out, building your audience, and really taking your career in the direction that you want to take on your own. So that means learning about marketing. It means learning about how to do art fairs. It means learning about how to display your work properly, how to network with people.
Because as I've said a million times before, the art world is based on relationships. One of the best things that you can do is spend your time just meeting people in a really natural way.

But today we're going to talk about three secrets that are going to boost your chances of gallery representation.

These might seem when I go over them that they're really obvious, but actually it’s really pretty rare that artists take the time doing these things. I think lots of times artists may think, ”I know enough and I'm going to go ahead and approach the gallery anyway”. But they really haven't done their homework. Let’s break down what that homework is!

So let's go ahead and start with number one, know all about the gallery before you approach them. Definitely do your research, find out what kind of exhibitions they do. Find out who they're representing, find out how long they've been in business. You want to be able to really know everything that you can. Who are the primary people at the gallery? What kind of work do they show? Do they do solo shows? Do they represent people? What is their business model? You know, some galleries are non-profit, some are commercial, and each of those models can really vary.

It's really important that you know how that gallery’s business model works. So how do you find this stuff out? Well, first you're obviously going to start on the website. If they're not local you're going to want to read everything that you can, study up on the shows they've done. This is the one way that galleries can really express their own creativity. The work that they show, how they show it, how they display it how long those shows are, what the themes are of those shows. These are the kinds of things that you're going to need to know that gives you insight into their business. And also lets you know what kind of people they are by the creativity that they put forth in their exhibitions. Maybe they follow a really standard model where they represent artists and then they have rotating solo shows of their represented artists mixed with group shows. And maybe they have a smaller, artist stable, and then they also bring in other artists for group shows. These are all the things that you definitely, definitely need to know before you approach, long before you approach. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is, is that you want to connect with the gallery before you approach them. And connecting is really simple in this day and age. It’s with social media, newsletters, websites, it's really easy to connect with that gallery you’re interested in. A lot of artists ask how do they connect with galleries who are out of their area. Social media websites, their newsletter, these are all great ways to do it.

The first thing you want to do is sign up for their newsletter. This is also going to give you information about what they're doing (which is also our number one!) knowing all about the gallery. So what exhibitions do they have coming up? You're going to be able to find out in their newsletter, what new artists are they representing and make sure you read the newsletter and, know what they're, you know, know what they're up to.

Signing up for the newsletter is the first and absolutely easiest way to connect with a gallery and learn what they are about. And, and on that note it's also important that you remember that you signed up for their newsletter. So don't unsubscribe at some point (because you won’t know what’s going on with them), or worse, report them for spam, which is very bad for the gallery as a small business. We're talking about smaller and mid tier galleries. So, understand that the gallery is going to be informed if you report them for spam they're going to know. That's not really a good look when you're going to approach them, right? The first thing I do when I get an email from an artist I don’t know or haven’t heard of before, is search my inbox for any past interaction. And if it shows up that you've reported me for spam, and then you're trying to get in one of my shows, I’m not going to be happy. So play nice with the newsletter, open it up, read it, know what they're doing and what they’re up to.

I should preface all of this by saying, you've got to start a database. And that doesn't mean a database like Artwork Archive, which is more for creating a database of your finished works. That's important, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is creating a database of all the galleries that you want to approach. When you approach them, how you approach them, what their response was. This is the only way that you can keep track. One of the things that's really important is that you are hitting them up again in a different way. For example, let's say you send postcards and then two months later you send an email. You need to keep track of all those things. If you get no response from three approaches, and you're definitely going to want to take them off your list for a year, and then revisit again much later. Having the newsletter, and knowing of any staff changes is important to track as well, because new staff means new people who may be interested in your work. The only way to keep up with this is to have a database so you can use. I use Airtable, which I love, but it has a small monthly fee. You can also use that Airtable for keeping track of all your artwork, where it is, when it's sold, things like that. You can also use Excel, which scares me, or you can use Numbers, which is on Apple, or there's also Google Sheets, which is free.

After you've signed up for their newsletter, you're going to want to follow them on social media. Now, those two things seem so obvious, but you would be shocked how few artists do that. Having a database will really help with knowing how much you did with connecting prior to approach. For example, I just got an email this morning from a person who wanted me to represent them. And they're not in my artist's community. I had never seen their name before. They're not on my newsletter list. They don't follow me on social media. And I'm thinking, why would you even approach me when you obviously know nothing about the gallery? I kind of feel like, well, she must be sending this email out to every single gallery in the world. And that's not really a good look either.

On social media, for the galleries that you really, really like, follow them and comment, just comment. And they're going to start seeing your name over and over again, and it's going to stick. Do that for a long time. You're not going to have any direct results from that that you're going to see, but what's going to happen is that in all likelihood, the gallery or whoever is running their social media is going to see your name popping up again and again and again, which can build recognition. And what this is doing, is sort of warming them up. You want to do all of these things before you get to that place where you are sending an email. And this might be months, several months. I would say at least three months of commenting on that gallery social media feed before you send the first approach email.

I would just focus on Instagram for social media. You've got the newsletter. So now if they're within driving distance, go to their next opening. But you don't want to be selling yourself there. You might want to just introduce yourself. Hi, I'm so-and-so. And maybe if you've been commenting on social media you know, they might recognize your name. That’s gold!

Now if you have gotten their newsletter, if you get the chance to meet the gallery owner or one of the senior people at the gallery, you can say something like, “you know, I really loved XYZ show you did a couple months ago. That would be a great way to break the ice. Who doesn’t love a compliment? And this lets them know you are truly interested in their business. Obviously don't want to be asking the gallery to do anything for you. You're just getting to know people.

This is not a fast process, just like with creating your work. This doesn't happen overnight. You're learning and learning and learning and evolving and changing. And where you are is exactly where you should be. And that’s okay. You can't just like walk into a gallery and expect the gallery owner to be like, “Oh my God, your work is amazing.
And I'm going to show you right now. And here's a solo show.” That just that doesn't happen. Behind the scenes is this long nurturing of a relationship before they will even open the door to talk to you. And that is because it's trust. It's building a relationship. It's getting to know you and really going gaga over your work.

So those are some of the easiest ways to connect with a gallery. With the newsletter, you’ll be able to see if the gallery is doing other things besides exhibitions. They might give workshops. They might have some sort of special event that you can be involved with. And also here's where your database is going to come in. Because that's where sometimes you can feel like, “Oh my God, I tried so hard to get in that gallery and they didn't even answer my email” If you have this database, you might be able to go back and see oh… it looks like I never signed up for their newsletter. I never commented on social media or even followed them. Looks like all I did was send this one email. So having this database where you can track what you did and when you did it, and when the response was for gallery, XYZ is going to be hugely helpful. Really it's the only way to know. Did I do all those things that I should do? Or did I just send a blind email? The thing that is sucky about it, is that when you (most likely) don’t hear back from a gallery with that blind email, you may feel really upset or rejected. When it has nothing to do with the artist's work! The problem is, the gallery doesn’t know you, or recognize your name, or have any context for you, because you didn’t do the connecting prior.

So there's going to be multiple galleries you want to approach. And this is also why you need the database. You can organize your database into your top picks, and then other galleries that are less priority. This will help with the overwhelm and keep things moving along.

Number three, our final one is know all about the art gallery business model.

I was really shocked to learn that so many artists had no idea how a gallery makes money, how the business works, what the expectations are for them as an artist. I've learned it's actually exceedingly rare when you meet an artist who understands the business. And that’s amazing to me, because it’s such a huge benefit for the artist to understand the business, and also learn how it works. One of the best things that an artist can do to make them really appealing to a gallery is to understand how the business works, to really understand how a gallery makes money, how a gallery stays afloat, what the expectations are for an artist.

So for instance, one of the things that I've sort of been watching in the art world and in the gallery business, is that there's always a real interest with representing younger artists because the idea is with younger artists, so the idea goes, you can nurture their career. And then towards the end of their career, you can really be selling their work for a lot of money. Hopefully. What I think artists may not understand, is that when a gallery starts representing you and starts investing their time and their space to that artist and that artist's career, they're usually going in the red to do that. Because if the artist isn't known and they give that artist a solo or two or three person show let’s say. And their gallery space is like a store essentially. If you were a shoe store let's say, and you're going to take the risk of only blue Nike's in that shoe store and nothing else, that's kind of like what a solo show is, especially if the artist isn't extremely well-known and doesn't have a big audience already. So you're taking a huge risk by using your gallery space, your entire retail space for a show for an artist who is not known. It's a massive risk. That's a risk that galleries often take in order to sell the work down the line at a higher price. When the artist is more well known. I'm not talking about like galleries that might also sell jewelry or, or other things, or they have a different model or are non-profit. I'm talking about like the very traditional gallery model.

The other thing that galleries spend money and time on is marketing. They're using their social media platform for promoting that artist. They're making books or they're making postcards and they're talking about the work, they're learning all about the artists they are representing. When they have an opening or any other time, they can always talk about where the artists lives, where the artists went to school, they know everything about the artist. So when a buyer might ask some questions, which happens all the time, they know all that information. So there's a lot of time and energy that goes into it, that the artist isn't really seeing, and they're not really aware of. So understanding how the gallery business works is extremely important.

So let's say an artist has a solo show and the gallery says, “for six months after the solo show, all the pieces that are in this show are going to go through the gallery.” A lot of artists get really pissed off about that because they don't understand. But it’s important to understand what the gallery did for that artist, gave their entire space. They did promotion for you. They learned about you. They talk about you and you're not there. Usually artists don’t see this, because artists are usually just there at the opening. They don't understand that every day that the gallery is open when their artwork is on the wall (or in storage), that the person who owns the gallery or other people who work there are discussing that work with the people who might be coming in and selling. So it's a lot of energy and time and money that goes into promoting artists that artists aren't really seeing.

So let's say that during this a solo show, people are coming in and they're seeing artist X and they are selling works 1, 2, 3. And let's say that this person who came into this gallery saw work number two. And they really love the piece and want to buy it. They talk to the gallerist about it. They found out all about the artist from the gallerist, et cetera, et cetera. They got some information, their CV, things like that, that the gallery has had on file. And then they go home and they contact the artist directly. This happens all the time. So if there isn't a six month lock on that work, and it sells through the artist and not the gallery, even though the buyer saw it at the gallery, the gallery did all that work for nothing. And this can happen for works that have been shown repeatedly in different shows or fairs, and then the artist lists that work with another gallery, or sells it on their own, cutting out the original gallery. I've had happened before and it's infuriating. So it's why is this important? Knowing the gallery biz for artists is important because you then understand where the gallery is coming from, and you understand the rules of the road.

If you happen to know what their rent was like, say three to $5,000. You already know just for rent, the gallery has to sell six to $10,000 worth of art to just pay the rent. Doesn't pay salaries. It doesn't pay electricity. It doesn't pay for heat, water, anything. Taxes and insurance is a huge one. So there's a lot of art that has to be sold and it's extremely risky with unknown artists for galleries. And that’s why they look long term.

So sometimes what can happen is an artist may feel like, “well, this is my work. I don't care if it was in a show with XYZ gallery, I'm going to sell it anyway because my show was a month ago” or something like that. The truth is, it's really difficult for an artist to know where that buyer might've come from. And in all likelihood, they probably saw their work or was introduced to that artist's work from the gallery, maybe on social media, because usually galleries have larger social media followings than artists do. It's one of the benefits of being with a gallery, right? So that's something for artists to keep in mind, because a lot of times I hear from artists, “oh, my gallery doesn't do anything for me. They haven't sold anything for me”. And, either the artist leaves disgruntled and angry because they feel like they deserved better, or they feel like they deserved more attention (ie, more money and time spent on them). But what I think is important about understanding how the gallery business works is knowing how much time and money a gallery is really putting into an artist's career, and the artist usually has no idea. But the truth is, there's just a lot of moving parts. Work may not be selling because the artist changed direction for example. And I think that a lot of times artists feel like they're entitled to sell their work on their own, because they’re just not seeing all that goes into an artist’s promotion, and they don’t understand the financial risks the gallery takes on. Even if the work is in storage, it’s often pulled out, discussed, and the gallery owner is working on sales for the artist.

It's important to understand how the gallery business works, because when you understand how a gallery stays afloat, and that there's very few galleries who are making a lot of money (very, very few) there needs to be some kind of loyalty to what that gallery has done for that artist, even if they don’t see it. What they've done for you in the past. There needs to be some kind of mutual respect and understanding and communication. Situations like this are where you hear about artists selling work behind a gallery's back because there is not an understanding of the gallery business. Sometimes it can take years and years for an artist's career to really pick up and sales become very good. And it's important to know that the gallery is banking on this, this is why they take these risks in the beginning, and that they have a longterm view. The gallery is willing to go in the red to promote that artist now so later they can both do better financially later when sales pick up and they become more well known.

So when an artist sells work just a couple months after a solo show for instance, and the gallery doesn't know, and the person who bought that work saw it at the gallery, or saw it on gallery social media, that sale’s proceeds should be split with the gallery. I think that the more an artist knows about the gallery business, the better it's going to be for them to develop a really positive relationship with that gallery. Because galleries talk. And when an artist intentionally or unintentionally burns a bridge with a gallery, it's not going to be a good thing for that artist. It might not make any difference, but it very well could. I think 99% of the time, these kinds of things are completely unintentional. But without understanding things from a gallery’s perspective, it could ruin future gallery relationships for artists.

So know how the gallery stays in business. Are they a commercial gallery? Do they, do they have to pay taxes? Do they have to make a certain amount of money every month? You're not going to know what that exact amount of money is, but you can estimate based on where the gallery is located or what their overhead might be. Then you have to double that basically for the amount of art that the gallery has to sell, because 50% goes to the artist. Knowing how that process works is going to be really, really positive for any gallery that might want to start a relationship with an artist. It's all about relationship building, and the more you understand how a gallery operates, how they make money, and why it's important to be loyal to a gallery for a long period of time, the better your chances are of getting more galleries in time, and be represented by more than one gallery.

To review: number one was to know all about the gallery before you approach them. Don't go in blind, learn about them, be interested, find out and discover if you want to be part of that ecosystem with them.

Number two, connect with a gallery before approach through social media, email list, etc. If they have something else going on, sign up for it.

And number three, know all about the gallery business, financially. How the process works with representation. How their show system works, especially with solo shows. Are they a commercial gallery, or non-profit space?

Knowing all of these things will strongly increase your chances of representation with one or more galleries.

Thanks for reading.