Some things to consider before your first show

Perhaps you’re just out of school and about to have your first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery, or you’re a little more seasoned and beginning a relationship with a new dealer. Here are a few things that, in our experience, are good to discuss transparently to ensure the process is as smooth as possible.

As you start: get clarity on the details

The offer to host a show may emerge from a personal relationship and friendly conversations, but ultimately you and your dealer are acting in your capacities as small-business owners. Most, but not all, galleries take 50% of the sale price of an artwork in exchange for what they do on your behalf. It’s important for both of you to be clear about just what that entails. In our experience, galleries typically:

• Pay to professionally pack and ship the work from your studio to the gallery (and back). Will they also pay for the packing materials?
• Pay to insure your work from “wall to wall,” i.e., from the moment it leaves your studio to the moment it returns
• Pay to have your work professionally photographed—both individual artworks and installation views of the exhibition. Often, once the show is installed, an artist can suggest specific views they’d like documented
• Store the works sent to the gallery but not installed in the show, and often store unsold works for a period after the show closes

Less commonly, some galleries also pay up front for production costs or split those costs once a work is sold. No matter how “common” your arrangement, pinning down these details early is helpful.

While you’re working: collaborate on a checklist

Though it’s a solo show, gallery owners love to have creative input. They know what works in their spaces and what doesn’t. Invite them into the process, not least because it also gets you talking about the work itself, which can help them when they later talk about it with others.

In our experience, most artists make more work for a show than can fit in the gallery’s space. Maybe eight paintings fit and you ship eleven or twelve to give you flexibility during installation. You’re going to have to make choices—ideally together. The works that don’t “make the checklist” nonetheless go into the gallery’s inventory and can be shown and offered to collectors.

This is a moment when Valise can help: as you finish works you’re considering for inclusion, add them to a collection and share a preview link with your dealer. That link can be their live view into the status of the show. It can also be a way to make preliminary checklist decisions before you get into the space for installation. You can hop on a video call, open your browsers, and add or subtract works and rearrange them into a preliminary sequence.

Once you’ve decided the checklist, use Valise to record the consignment. Even if it’s not accompanied by formal paperwork outlining the details agreed to above, it’s important for you to know the status of those works and when you expect them back. In our experience, most consignments last one year from the date the artworks are shipped to the gallery.

After the show closes: figure out what’s next

One of the bedrock principles underpinning Valise is that it’s important for artists to keep a clean and complete copy of their records. So when the show closes, be sure to get information from your dealer. For example, you’ll want high-resolution files of all the photographs taken of your work, as well as the name of the photographer to credit. Importantly, you’ll also want to know what sold and to whom. Take half an hour and add this data to your Valise vault, so you won’t have to bother the gallery when a question inevitably pops up later.

For the works that didn’t sell, talk with the dealer about both of your expectations: how long will they keep that work “in inventory”? Will they take it to art fairs? If a curator or other gallery wants to show it, will the work be consigned through you or through the gallery?

At an even higher level, if the show went well, this is a good time to talk about whether you both want to enter into a more formal “representation” relationship. (Know, though, that in the art world, this is typically just a handshake agreement.)

Even if you don’t continue working together, at this point you’ll have all the information you need to keep tabs on those works as they continue moving through the world.

This is a live document. Is there something you think we should add? Is there nuance you wish were reflected in the recommendations? Feel free to write to us!