Exhibiting Artwork (I'm gonna make it after-allll)

desperaterobots

Hi Folks,

[I was going to post this in Help/Advice but figured it's more relevant to more people in here.]

I'm considering holding an exhibition for my paintings. I've never done it before.

Luckily there is a store in town with a gallery space partly subsidised by the Government. I pay a small fee ($200ish), they take 30% on any sales (I'm not sure if this is high or low or what), and I get to wet my feet in the WORLD OF ART!

If anyone has ever done anything like this, I'd love to hear your advice. If anyone has attended an opening and remembers anything they liked/disliked/would have liked to have seen, I'd also appreciate the heads up.

Specific questions:

Pricing. What's considered too high/low for someone starting out? My target audience probably ain't got all that much money, but I don't want to be undervaluing my work. However, in the end, any money is better than none, and I'm not in it to get rich.

Catalogue..ing...? How do I assign catalogue number to my paintings? Is this an arbitrary thing that I just invent for the purpose of the exhibition?

Who do I invite? Friends? Family? Where are all the people who want to buy my pictures?! :P

Anything else? Anyone? Help!

Loomdun

There quite literally is nothing to go off, No painting, material or anything it would be like saying

"How much should I sell this house, it stores people inside, along with cars, and clothes, it is a house, how much should I sell it for"

No one can really give much of a answer off the information in other words.

desperaterobots

You're so right.

They're acrylic on canvas, about yay big. Does that help? Probably not. I'm not really looking at specific prices or what you'd pay for them, but advice on how to price. If that makes sense.

Loomdun

desperaterobots wrote: »

You're so right.

They're acrylic on canvas, about yay big. Does that help? Probably not. I'm not really looking at specific prices or what you'd pay for them, but advice on how to price. If that makes sense.

First of all base it off how rich these people are, Then, the easiest method would be throwing a Auction with a starting prices of I would say 200$? I really honestly cant get much more accurate then that with what I'm being told here, Auctioning would be your safest bet if this is your first selling though because in a auction people will add up the money themselves to what they think its worth.

desperaterobots

Well that's unexpected. Hadn't thought of it. Thanks. I would have thought an auction at someones first exhibition would have been a little over the top. Do you have any personal experience with pricing your work you could share?

ewomack

Though I've never exhibited anything (artwise, that is), I know many people who have. Their experiences have ranged from extremely successful to dismal misery. A few have sold out on opening night. Others had to make the sad march home 3 months later carrying all the artwork they started with. The difference seemed to be how much press the showing attracted. Even a small blurb in a local paper seemed to help. Those with no press or announcements tended to attract just family and friends or art gallery denizens. They generated some "sympathy sales" but nothing substantial. As you probably know, art is an onerous biz. Getting a marketing buzz seems to score far more points than just having interesting work. Sad as it is, groupthink, trends, and populism have as much effect in the artworld as they do elsewhere.

If you can, get some press around your exhibition. Anything will help. Set up a website. Send out press releases. Call the papers (they probably will meet you with stoic indifference but you never know). Do whatever you can to promote it and you'll probably sell at least one piece to someone you've never seen before and will likely never see again (except at future shows).

Mykonos

any chance you can give us a preview? (take pics and post em!)

zero_one

not to trying to be an asshat or anything but shouldn't this be in the questions or chat thread since there's no art here?

desperaterobots

I can't exactly give you a preview since the work isn't completed yet, but it's going to be a series of 8 portraits in a similar style to this guy:



They're all based on people I see out at night and have titles like 'The Sullen Air-Hostess' and 'The Angered Tarantino'. There will be a postcard series and badges for sale etc.

I'm not looking for crits on the work, just any advice on exhibiting. Not that my work is above criticism, it's just not ready yet. I wanted to approach the gallery - a small back-of-store place with a focus on emerging artists, illustrators, designy stuff, etc - with some idea of what to expect from an exhibition, ideas for opening night, how to catalog work, pricing advice etc, so I thought I'd ask the only people I know of who are likely to have some experience.

I do realise it can vary from artist to artist so thats why I was more interested in your experiences rather than what you think I should do specifically. Sorry if that wasn't clear in the OP.

If the thread doesn't belong, can a mod please lock?

Orikaeshigitae

Pricing advice:

Take how much the materials cost; paint, canvas, any dry materials you needed, gesso, etc.

Double that for your labour cost, and then add a bit for profit.

Then ask yourself if anyone would buy it for that price. The thing with pricing art is that not many people will buy exorbitantly expensive stuff if you're not exhibiting in high-class galleries. If it's a coffee shop or store catering to students or middle-class people, I would not make it too expensive, since the people probably aren't going to be art connoisseurs. It's a balancing act, and there's no sure way to do things.

Definitely don't shortchange yourself, though. It's easy to be a starving artist if you're not making any money on the art.

Also be warned: shows where the artist doesn't make any money due to showing fees are fairly common. They suck, and you should do your best to avoid them, but they happen. Don't expect to make money constantly just off of art sales - you need to have your fingers in a lot of pies to make a living as an artist.

Also also: Do your framing yourself, or specify that you don't want your shit framed. Some galleries will frame your shit without asking you and then charge you hundreds of dollars for the labour and materials. Don't be the artist who gets shafted. Educate yourself about the gallery's practices.


Opening night? Look into catering. I was just at my friend's reception for his new show, and his mom did the catering, so it doesn't have to be professional. She just did some snack foods and desserts, crackers, cheese, etc. You want the catering to be good, and provide drinks. The idea is to keep people around so they can talk about your work, so you want lots of backup food and drink around.

Invite everyone you know. Tell them to bring their friends.

How to catalog work? I'm not sure what you mean by 'cataloguing', but documenting your work is extremely important. What happens when you sell a really good piece, but then have to submit a portfolio for an art college or something? You're SOL, unless you document as a matter of habit.

Basically, get a good camera and a tripod, if you don't already. You want the picture to accurately represent the painting; that usually means putting it against a white surface. The rest is something you'll figure out pretty quickly, especially if you use digital. You don't need a SLR, but I think 6 or 7 megapixels is the lowest you want to go for digital.

Any other questions? Your OP was somewhat vague.

e: oh , promotion. I don't have a lot of experience with that sort of thing, but I'd email your local alternative papers and student publications and see if you can put in an ad or invite the reporters to cover it. Try as many places as you can think of. make up snazzy invites with the name of the show and your name on the front (along with a representative piece) and on the back, put the time range of the show, the date of the opening reception, and the location. restating the show's title is okay too.

leave the invites on coffee shop counters and student lounges around town.

Orikaeshigitae

I guess you're never coming back, but I'm bumping this anyway for aspiring artists, and in the vain hope that you'll see it.

Mykonos

For pricing, you could make a general estimate based off whatever factors, or you could take a more mind numbing approach, in which case I'll try and help.

Specific demographics may be your key factor at this stage for your determining your price and estimating your potential turnout. Average wallet size of the local population isn't quite enough nowadays. You may have to examine cultural leanings (i.e. small town southern populations may be more into vintage than contempory *hypothetical), age dispersion (young college town vs retirement communities), racial diversity (would a town's sizable latino population be attracted to your art), etc etc etc.

Then look at the demand for art on a more aggregate viewpoint (what is the populations demand for purchasing art in general), then narrow your population on a more micro level (i.e. what is a college student's price reservation for purchasing art, suppose he had 20$, would he spend it on one painting of that price, or 4 posters five dollars each...what a yuppie do? what would Jesus do? (ROFLOLzlpalooza).

Once you start doing that, you would have something to work with in estimating a price to your own art.

DeeLock

Mykonos, you're such a joke.

Mykonos

i know, right? I have a final comin up on this shit and helps to regurgitate it even if its in a forum

edit: I need to not study while having this forum up ne more cuz this adderal is making me write these obnoxiously long post that's starting to annoy even myself...

rts

30% is a low cut for a gallery. Most serious galleries will claim closer to half.

Orikaeshigitae

Place didn't sound that serious to me.

desperaterobots

Hey I'm still around! I saw your post Orikaeshigitae, really helpful stuff. Held off replying to see if anyone else was going to chime in and since then I've been distracted.

Regarding promotion, luckily I've got some experience with that and some connections in the local indy media so it shouldn't be too hard, but thanks for suggesting this as I really hadn't thought of it.

Cataloguing: the gallery asks that I provide them with catalogue numbers for the work I'm exhibiting. I mean, they'll give me the answer in the end but I was curious to see if anyone knew what they might be referring to.

And no, the place is not a "serious" gallery as such. It's advantages are that it's one of the few that's accessible/affordable and small enough to successfully pull a solo-show, and it's a credible outlet for "up and coming" local designers/artists/illustrators. Gotta start some place.

That 30% is a low cut is great to know. At least I know they're not trying to rip me off.

supabeast

When it comes to price, the first thing you need to do is figure out what it cost you to make a painting. Depending on size and materials, this can add up pretty fast—when I was painting I could easily hit $100 just for engineered stretchers and good canvas. Add in the cost of paint, and figure the time you spent preparing your media (priming, sanding, etc.) and what that was worth. Then toss in the costs of aborted works, drawing materials, time spent sketching and studying, etc. Once you know all that, do the numbers and figure out what you need to break even after the $200 and the gallerys 30% cut. Then, at a minimum, double that number so that you have money left over to paint some more. Triple it if you want money to do something else with.

And a 30% cut for the gallery is amazing. Here in the states 50% is a pretty good rate.