We all know that the only opportunities available to you aren’t the ones other people initiate.
Yet it’s a bad habit that so many artists need to break: waiting for gallery representation, hoping to be discovered, or cycling through the same juried shows year after year because the application crossed their desk and it felt like an opportunity they should take.
I understand the appeal. A gallery taking over your sales sounds divine. But for most artists, it stays a fantasy because galleries will never notice them in the confines of that juried show.
The waiting keeps you from creating your own opportunities. And makes you beholden to the art world gatekeepers.
[ See: Art World Gatekeeping Forces Artists to Compete with Damien Davis (254) ]
In episode 264 of The Art Biz, I make the case for thinking differently about where and how your work gets seen.
What "white walls" really means
I love a pristine gallery wall as much as anyone. Clean, neutral, the perfect backdrop for original work. But white walls have also become a metaphor for an ideal situation. Perfect conditions or the right venue.
Juried shows are the other version of this trap. You pay entry fees, get selected, compete with fifty or a hundred other artists also chosen, and hope your work stands out in a crowd. It rarely does.
There’s nothing about that format that puts your work in the spotlight. You are one of many, and the show was never designed to feature you.
What I want for you is different. I want you taking control by curating your own opportunities, choosing venues that actually serve the work, and getting in front of the people most likely to connect with it.
Three shows I'll never forget
A plumbing junkyard
I was in far north Boulder, Colorado on a hot July day in 2007, and pulled into a parking lot for a plumbing junkyard. The attendant (for a plumbing junkyard!) asked: “Are you here for the plumbing or the art?” I am fairly certain that question has never been asked before or since.
Artist Lori Wahl had installed her thesis exhibition throughout the junkyard: video, sound sculptures tucked inside pipes, sinks, and toilets, work you had to seek out and interact with.
Not every artist makes work appropriate for showing in a junkyard, but it showed what imagination looks like when it’s fully unleashed.
A borrowed home
The second example was a home show by artist Kathleen O’Brien. She lived in Kentucky but knew people in Colorado, so she arranged to borrow a home and invited people in to see and purchase her work.
It was a thoughtful installation of original pieces on the walls, small prints beautifully displayed on tables, artist books, and cards. It worked because the host believed in her work and brought the right people. A borrowed home can be one of the most intimate and effective exhibition spaces available to you, and it costs far less than renting a gallery.
A rented hotel conference room
The third example is a group of four artists who rented a hotel space for one night only. They set up separate booths with wall panels, lighting, and smaller items on tables, and it was well attended.
But here’s the lesson that stung a little: I nearly missed it entirely. I knew two of the artists personally. I live in the same town. And they never reached out to me directly. They posted on Facebook and assumed I’d see it. I almost didn’t.
Getting the venue is only half the work. Once you have a space, you need people to actually show up — and that comes down to how you communicate. I’ve written about the difference between announcing, commanding, and inviting, and it’s worth reading before you start promoting any exhibition.
[ How to write an art show invitation: announcing, commanding, or inviting? ]
The opportunities you create yourself
The possibilities for showing and selling your work are limited only by your imagination — and sometimes, honestly, your ego. The ego that insists the only worthy venues are the ones with four white walls and a director who chose you.
We wouldn’t know Impressionism as a capitalized -ism if these artists hadn’t set up their work in a photographer’s studio and invited the critic who, fortuitously, gave it its name.
What buzz could you create if you look beyond the gatekeepers?
If you’re ready to think more expansively about where your work could live and who could see it, my Beyond White Walls workshop on May 7 is exactly that conversation.
We’ll go deeper into finding and evaluating non-traditional spaces, and you’ll leave with plug-and-play email templates for reaching out to venues.
Listen
Related Episodes
More episodes featuring venue opportunities.
