At a certain point in your career as an artist, you would like to exhibit and sell your works and make a living from your art. Considering the crucial role of galleries in the primary art market, operating as the direct link between artists and the art world—among collectors—they are the perfect business partner to achieve those goals. Art galleries provide an ideal setting to showcase your work. They improve your credibility and career momentum, promoting and supporting you as an artist by introducing your work to the press and collectors. Even more, galleries take care of all the administrative and promotional tasks so artists can focus on creating art. But how do you get your art in a gallery?
Finding gallery representation can be a career-changing event for an artist, resulting in recurring exhibitions and sales. However, the path to achieving this milestone can seem daunting and elusive, especially for artists new to galleries and the art world. As a result, this article will demystify the process of getting your work showcased in an art gallery, providing practical advice and sharing proven strategies. By doing so, you won’t waste your time spending hours on strategies that are often advised or promoted but, in reality, never work.
It is time to discuss the first strategies to approach galleries and to work with them. However, for those who are still in doubt about what galleries do and if it is the right career path for you, make sure to read the following articles for more information and context:
- The Art Gallery: Everything You Need To Know
- Artist Career Paths: Galleries, Social Media & the Artist’s Dilemma
- Explained: What is the Art World
1. The Truth About Applying To Art Galleries
A very common approach, which is also often advised by other art business coaches, is to apply to art galleries by either sending out portfolios in a closed envelope, walking into galleries asking for an exhibition, cold-calling them to see if they are looking for new artists, or sending out hundreds of emails with unsolicited submissions. However, this is most likely the worst thing you can do for various reasons.
First and foremost, this strategy’s success rate is almost 0%. Galleries receive unsolicited submissions daily and are unable to review all of them. As a result, they simply end up in the bin without being reviewed. You might think this is rude, frustrating, and unfair, but galleries already have a roster full of artists they have to support. Reviewing, answering, and explaining the situation in response to these submissions is time-consuming, and they are already short on staff or time, and a couple of hours later, another submission comes, and another, and another—so it feels like emptying the ocean with a thimble.
As a result, galleries often state on their websites that they do not accept unsolicited submissions by artists. This does not mean they do not want to find new artists, but they want to do so by approaching the one artist they are looking for instead of answering to thousands of artists they were not looking for, and we must respect that and their time. They do not owe you anything, and it is not their fault that there are around 5 million artists competing for just around 25,000 galleries. Therefore, it has become an unwritten rule that reaching out to galleries or asking for an exhibition or representation in general is not done. And considering the upcoming strategies we are about to discuss, we can definitely respect that rule and pursue our goal in different ways.
Yet, some people advise you to send out to 100 galleries and see what sticks, and even others advise you to pretend to be someone else—such as a journalist—to get in touch with them. Not only does this go against the unwritten rule, and the success ratio will be around 0%, but if you do have a submission that sticks and a gallery does write you back or wants to work with you, there is likely a good reason for it. Most often, these galleries will charge you a fee to participate in their exhibitions; you might have to do all the promotional work yourself, or they do not have a curated exhibition program or high-end clientele. If you want to exhibit your work once and are okay with this, that’s fine. However, if you want to make a career out of your art and enter the art world, these galleries will not help you. Therefore, no matter the success ratio, we advise never to send unsolicited submissions to art galleries.
2. Professionalize Your Artist Profile & Be Ready
A first requirement to see any success when pursuing gallery representation is to be ready for it—you, and the work. Make sure that your oeuvre is mature and prepared to stand its ground in a high-end environment. Be honest with yourself and try to be objective when reviewing your work by having a good frame of reference comparing your work with top-notch art. Have a clear identity and vision that translates to a solid artist statement on which you can rely.
Ensure that your works are cohesive and that there is an all-encompassing foundation—visually or conceptually—resulting in recognizability and consistency. Have at least ten to fifteen recent works of your highest quality ready to enter a group show or a complete homogenous series of works for a solo exhibition, and they are priced following the market standards. If you can not meet those requirements, then there is still some work to do in the studio first, so we can deliver instantly when an opportunity arises—and we have work to convince galleries that we are worth the opportunity.
Make sure to have some exhibiting experience before you work with galleries via art opportunities, open studio days, or self-organized exhibitions. With your first show, you will almost inevitably make some mistakes. Learn from them and make them before we start to exhibit at high-value venues. Be an expert within your niche and be as knowledgeable as possible when it comes to contemporary art and art history. Simultaneously, you need to know how the art world works, especially how the artist-gallery collaboration works in general.
Professionalize your artist profile by creating an industry-approved artist website, including a professional artist resume and biography. Other documents we might need are a catalog with available works, certificates of authenticity, and a central contact list, among others. These are all must-have documents that are used and requested constantly in the professional art world, and they need to follow certain industry standards. To sort out all these documents and to professionalize your profile efficiently, feel free to consult our overview page with career tools for artists.
3. Getting Noticed Via “Breadcrumbs Strategies”
A term we have often used with CAI when discussing different ways for artists to get discovered is the “breadcrumbs strategy.” In this case, we place some breadcrumbs in various corners of the world so that if galleries follow these crumbs, they will end up contacting you and initiate the collaboration themselves instead of vice versa. By doing so, we want to maximize our chances and exposure to be seen by galleries in the most professional manner. Here is a brief recital of some “breadcrumbs” that could lead to you.
Online Exposure
We can actively increase our online exposure to maximize the amount of eyeballs that get to see our work—including art galleries—to increase our chances of getting noticed by art galleries. However, we need to do this in ways that are approved by the art world. For instance, creating advertisements, TV commercials, billboards, or sending out flyers might be effective strategies for regular business, but for artists, this is very counterproductive as these acts of self-promotion are frowned upon and are seen as too commercial and unprofessional.
On the other hand, submitting to online art magazines to have your work reviewed and featured in their magazines is accepted—and it has happened more than once that artists who are featured in an online art magazine, for instance, our CAI online magazine, are being picked up by gallerists who are following these magazines because they are in search for new artists—on their initiative. Or what about paid features on large Instagram pages
Art Opportunities
We can also actively search for new art opportunities in the form of open calls for artists where certain art world entities are open for submissions by artists—think of art awards, artist residencies, grants, and exhibition open calls. These art opportunities will most often provide an exhibition opportunity and are frequently followed by galleries who are looking for new artistic talent to represent—once more on their initiative. These opportunities are a form of art world validation and separate the wheat from the chaff and to have a high quality selection of artists straight away.
Even more, some of these art opportunities are specifically by art galleries that are looking for artists for a yearly group exhibition, for instance, in which they, for a limited time, allow submissions. Our number one recommendation for art opportunities is, without a doubt, Artenda.net.
Social Media
Social media, particularly Instagram, the most used social media platform within the art world, is another excellent way to get noticed. You would be surprised how many artists are picked up by galleries simply by scrolling through Instagram. In short, it is an opportunity one merely cannot ignore. Art galleries are looking for various things when scrolling through Instagram in search of new artists. The first is the work itself, which needs to be a match in terms of personal taste and the gallery program, and it needs to be so-called ‘art world art.’
In addition, if they see that you have a decent following of, let’s say, at least 4,000 followers and more than 150 likes per post, there is another great sign that there is an audience for your work and that it might do well in the gallery as well. To conclude, your overall Instagram profile needs to be professional. Do not follow all the TikTok trends when it comes to short-form vertical video content to do well for the algorithm, but stay true to your artistic goals first. For more information, we have dedicated a complete article and video on how to use Instagram professionally and successfully.
Participating in the Art World
Participating in the art world is another great way to leave some tracks of breadcrumbs leading to you by simply being around. Go to openings, fairs, festivals, and biennales. Become an art world insider without imposing your art onto others. You can support other artists and galleries, curate exhibitions, help to realize exhibitions, write essays for art magazines, and much more. If you become a familiar face in the art world, the right people will notice you as a person first and then your art. This brings us to the next strategy.
4. Targeted Networking
Networking is perhaps the most powerful strategy on this list if you want to participate in the art world and find gallery representation. Unfortunately, artists dread it the most. I can understand why; it is time-consuming and intimidating, and not everyone has the people skills to do it successfully. Still, it is too important to ignore this aspect completely. We can never predict where our next exhibition or sale is coming from, but in the end, it always comes from our network—directly or indirectly. Therefore, to streamline this often dreaded career strategy, it is advised to do some targeted networking.
Focus on a specific art center first. Avoid so-called art islands, such as tiny cities that are not connected with the rest of the art world. They might be easier to navigate and enter, but you might get stuck in them. Opt for large to medium-sized art cities that are relatively nearby—let’s say within a six-hour drive from you. Within this city, identify the entry-level art galleries. These art galleries must be serious and high-quality galleries that are still within your reach as a new emerging artist. A great way to discover the galleries in your city is via the Artfacts algorithm or simply via Google Search. Look for art galleries that fit with your work to increase the chance of the gallery director liking your work and having the right clientele for your work.
Now that you have identified those galleries identify the artists within their program that you genuinely like. Try to find artists that are from your generation and that are just slightly above you in terms of their careers. By doing so, you are still on the same foot, and you can grow together. You can also aim to identify other actors in that art scene, such as authors writing for the local press or magazines, curators, gallery staff, and more. Write all these contacts down in your central contact list so you can network efficiently.
First, use Instagram to network from a distance to make networking less intimidating. You can build up a relationship with your contacts online before cultivating those contacts in real life when heading to that city center to visit a couple of openings. Other artists are the easiest to connect with, and they can introduce you to the rest of the network surrounding the targeted galleries. Become a familiar face in the galleries, and do not impose yourself as an artist, or their “desperate-artist-looking-for-representation” alarm will go off instantly. Be interested in them and do not expect anything from them.
Be patient, consistent, professional, and, if possible, charismatic. Support them and engage with them—in real life and on Instagram. By being on their radar, in their direct environment, or simply popping up in their Instagram feed, your chances to discuss a collaboration increase, which can occur with our next strategy.
5. The Direct Approach
While it is frowned upon to cold-call art galleries or walk up to them and ask for representation, there are certain situations where you can initiate the collaboration without stepping on any toes. The first option is to get to know the gallery director personally through networking. When you have had multiple chats during the openings, you have been supporting them in any way possible, and they also follow you back on Instagram, for instance; at that point, they will know that you are an artist without you having to tell them.
If they ask what you have been up to, you can briefly discuss what you have been doing as an artist but that you do not want to force your way into their program by all means. However, if they would be interested, you can say that your door is open for them for a studio visit or perhaps for a group show if the topic and timing are right. After this, you immediately repeat that you respect their curation and program and don’t expect anything from them. You enjoy their program, and if you were a part of it one day, that would be even better. A carefully calculated solicitation, or simply letting them know you are willing to work with them.
A more aggressive and effective direct approach consists of actively finding gallery representation when you have something to offer. For instance, you have a large social media following, receive numerous requests from collectors, and sell between four to ten works per year via Instagram. Or, you have been building your own audience and collector list with past shows and know that you have a decent clientele, selling with every show to some of those people from your contact list. As soon as you have organic demand for your work and steady sales, you are in a position of power and are able to contact good galleries directly.
Do your research first to ensure the gallery in question is a good fit. Do they pay well? Do they have a PR agency for press exposure for their artists? Do they participate in international art fairs? Et cetera. Give them a heads-up via another artist that you might contact them to discuss representation. Contact the gallery in person and state that you have outgrown your current situation as an artist and are looking for high-quality representation to take care of your current ongoing sales—and this part is, of course, crucial to gather their attention. Ask with whom and when you could discuss this in person.
6. Investing In Long-Term Collaborations
One might think it is a bad move to give art galleries 50% of the sales that you have initiated. However, when we think beyond short-term income, if this 50% ensures recurring exhibition where new sales will happen that would not have if you continue representing yourself, it will pay off itself and be the best move in the long run. You will encounter new people and new recurring collectors, increase your credibility with representation and recurring shows, more press exposure, and thus, more momentum and progress when it comes to the bigger picture of climbing the ladder of success in the art world.
Therefore, always share your direct sales with your gallery partners to continue collaborating. Even more, if you have an upcoming show, making the sale happen yourself could be a great idea. By doing so, you show there is something in it to continue working with you and that you are a team player. Proof them that you can deliver and that representing you is a lucrative decision. If the work is good and fits with the gallery, organic sales will follow as well.
Other ways to invest in long-term collaborations are, for instance, by transparently sharing your collector’s list, supporting the other artists within the program, gifting work to them personally at the end of a show, suggesting to share the costs of an international art fair, or simply by having good contacts in the art world—think of having good press contacts and using them to support the gallery. They will appreciate it and reward you for it. If they don’t, then these are not the people you want to work with, and you did everything you could to make it happen. Draw conclusions and move.
Do not only focus on finding the perfect gallery to work with; don’t forget to work on yourself to become the perfect artist for galleries to work with. It will pay off.
Last Updated on August 17, 2024