Dear Gallerist:
Thank you for the email announcing the ‘X’ Galleries’ second location
& the Call For Art. Since 10 of my artworks are already on
the ‘X’ gallery website and one of my artworks was featured on the cover of one
of the ‘X’ Gallery Art Catalogs last year I was excited to submit for the new
gallery.
That is until I saw the $24.00 fee merely
to LOOK at my work.
Then I stopped the upload process & left the website because it’s
a PAY TO DISPLAY SCHEME.
Seriously!? I was going to
quote back to you your own words about this from your book but a quick re-read shows
you didn’t address pay-to-display schemes.
Obviously you left that bit out because you can’t call-out the very
thing you do! I thought you were
different from the other gallerists.
When ‘X’ Gallery started its online gallery you charged me fees to be
on your website. I paid those fees because
I believed ‘X’ Gallery was a different & better gallery.
I also PAID to be in one of ‘X’ Galleries’ Art Catalogs. My artwork was even featured on the cover. I could have bought an ad in Art Business News for about the same
cost but I believed I had a shot at [your market] via your catalog. It didn’t do anything for me, but you got
your catalog paid for by artists.
I’ve paid you enough already.
After reading your book I tried to put myself in the position of the
gallerist & better understand YOUR point of view. Here’s a little something from the artists’
point of view YOU need to know:
Paying a gallery to LOOK at our artwork is insulting. It’s really galling.
And here’s how it usually works:
1.
Pay the fee.
2.
Submit the artworks.
3.
Wait.
4.
Wait some more.
5.
Assume you were rejected because you never heard
back from the gallery…
6.
…because the gallery never even looked at the
artwork because…
7.
All they wanted was your money.
You could search YOUR OWN WEBSITE & find plenty of artwork for
your new space but that would eliminate an income stream of essentially, Free
Money.
So, as much as I like your gallery, good business-sense tells me that
paying you to view the artworks of mine you already have online is a waste of
money. Seriously, if you want to be just
a little bit better than the other galleries, DO NOT charge artists merely to “consider”
their artworks – that’s what scammers do, and you really don’t want to come off
like that.
Ironically, while writing this email, I received an email announcement from your
gallery bragging about the “first sale” in the new space. So, since the gallery is up & running, what
are artists submitting for? And why to you need $24.00 for a look-see
when you’re already selling art? Do you
understand that this really reeks of just another pay to (not) display
art-scam?
Good luck with the new space. I
was really excited to read about it, but I won’t pay you more than 50% of an
art sale to be a part of it.
I know this blog has very few readers but less than 24 hours after
posting the above, I received a personal email response from the actual owner
of ‘X Gallery.’ (I think BD or DN ratted
me out!) Here’s the email I received, with
minor editing to protect the gallerist’s privacy.
A friend alerted me to your blog post and I wanted to take a moment to
respond. First, let me say that I understand where you are coming from with the
post and you make very valid points. I do wish you would have actually sent
your letter to me so that I would have a chance to respond, but I'll take that
opportunity now.
There are several reasons I ask for a submission fee. The submission
system we use that helps streamline the process of reviewing comes at a cost,
fees help offset that cost. More importantly, however, my outreach to the
artist community has put me in touch with tens of thousands of artists. Several
years ago I asked for submissions with no entry fee and was overwhelmed with
over 13,000 submissions. Many of the submissions weren't appropriate for our
gallery, but artists from all over the world submitted because they easily
could. I have found that asking for a submission fee greatly reduces the number
of submissions and encourages artists to think about whether or not their work
is appropriate for my gallery. I tend to get much better submissions because
those who are paying a fee to submit are serious about the submission.
I hope that the value I'm providing in my many blog posts and videos
at absolutely no cost to artists balances out the submission fee in the long
term.
Thanks for your consideration
And my reply to the email:
Thank you for reading my blog.
Obviously I’ve struck a chord which compelled your response. And I do appreciate your response, despite my
absolute disagreement with your pay-to-view policies. Actually, I had considered emailing you
directly but I really didn’t want to start an argument and I figured your
response wouldn’t be any different than what you wrote in your email.
Please understand that I have already heard every reason,
rationalization and excuse you make for the submission fee, and while you also
make some valid points, I still completely and absolutely disagree with the
policy. To elaborate:
First of all I view “streamlining” the review process as a cost of
doing business that should not be passed on to the artist.
Secondly, if your “outreach to the artist community” has really put
you in touch with “tens of thousands of artists” why don’t you just contact one
of those ten-thousand-plus artists to fill the walls of your new gallery
space? Really, if you have contact with
that many artists, simple mathematics indicates you should never, ever need to put out a call for art.
I completely agree that too many artists submit works to galleries
that are inappropriate for the venue. You
covered that succinctly on pp. 131-132 of your book.
The most common complaint I’ve heard from virtually every gallerist
I’ve ever met is the ‘overwhelming’ number of submissions they get. What do
you expect?! You are in the Gallery
Business, don’t act surprised that artists come to you seeking exhibition
opportunities, it’s what you do. You guys act like Chefs that are pissed-off
that the restaurant is busy during the lunch hour!
You’ve been in the business long enough to know that artists will beat
a path to your door to get your eye for a moment. You are in the unique position to pick and
choose, reject or accept, all the while basking in the economic safety of
having no investment in the production of
the product you sell.
This is manageable for you. Many galleries’ websites have ‘submission
guidelines’ where the words ‘not accepting
new submissions at this time’ can be found.
You could do that to lighten your ‘review workload.’ Or, you could set aside a month in the
(traditionally slow) summer season to review portfolios. These are two “streamlining” suggestions for
you.
But galleries count on two things about artists, 1.) That artists make
decisions based on emotion and, 2.) Artists can’t do math. Essentially, a $24.00 ‘review fee’ is the
price paid for False Hope. Here’s the
math:
Let’s assume the gallery accepts 2% of new submissions for
representation. If 1000 artists pay
$24.00 each to have their work seen, the gallery has made $24,000.00. With a 2% success rate for artists that gives
the gallery 20 new artists which is many more than can be exhibited in a year (unless
you’re doing huge group shows). So, 980 artists
have paid you $24.00 each to be REJECTED.
So, that (theoretical) 24 grand you made, which will meet your rent
and payroll obligations for a while, you made on the backs of artists, while you did absolutely nothing and took no
risks whatsoever. 24 grand more than
compensates you for opening emails.
So yeah, I have both an economic and a moral problem with pay-to-view schemes.
In conclusion, in my case, I saw your ‘artist call’ as an opportunity. I like your gallery and much of the art I’ve
seen there. Despite the decline in the
[local] arts district The ‘X’ Gallery remains as a beacon in the [local] art
scene and is, in my view, a ‘prestigious’ gallery. Yet I had to reconsider my submission. You can see my artworks on your own website
already, I’ve paid for ads in your catalog, my work was featured on the cover, and none of this has done anything for me
except deplete my bank account. I
had to figure that paying you (again) would be little more than a reminder of
what you already have online, which you have never exhibited on the gallery
walls. Based on past history I had to
rationally conclude that I had ZERO CHANCE of getting my works selected to hang
in the new space.
I understand, but disagree with your position. I hope you now have a better understanding of
the artists’ position. I didn’t email
you directly because I didn’t want this to come off as personally
confrontational. I simply reject the
concept. In the unlikely event I ever
get the opportunity to exhibit in ‘X’ Gallery, we at least know where each
other is coming from.
Thank you for your consideration.
I waited a full week after sending my reply email but the gallerist
never responded. I suspect his lack of
response is because his position is fundamentally indefensible based on the
math I presented. I am grateful that my original blog, my reply and the gallerists’ email to me was
cordial. Often these ‘debates’
deteriorate to name calling quickly and that accomplishes nothing. Neither of us has swayed the others’ opinion
and I’m sure he won’t change his policies.
He doesn’t have to. There are
always artists who will pay to be rejected so he’s got a perfectly legal free-income stream at his disposal. He’s not running a scam, but this sort of
thing is often used to extract easy money-for-nothing from willing artists by
‘art scammers.’
Here’s the easy scam that I fear and everyone should consider when
paying someone to ‘review’ their artwork, this also applies to fees charged to
submit to juried exhibitions:
1.
The gallery establishes a ‘pay to review,’ ‘pay
to enter a juried show,’ or, ‘pay to display’ system. The verbiage to watch out for which indicates
this could be a scam reads something
like this: “…if the gallery is
interested in your artworks we will contact you…”
2.
By using the above terminology, or a variation
of it, what they are really saying is: If we don’t like your art, you won’t hear
from us OR don’t call us, we’ll call you.
When you never hear back from the gallery you are supposed to assume
that you have been rejected by blow-off. You are supposed to assume that they actually
looked at your work and rejected it, but how do you know they actually viewed
your submission? You don’t! And you may have been scammed – they got your
money and you got NOTHING.
3.
A sure way to know you’ve NOT been scammed is to
receive a communication indicating they actually saw your work. A generic
rejection doesn’t count, those can be sent automatically; no, you need a
rejection that actually references your work.
If you hear nothing back after your submission, it’s possible you’re a
victim of a very common art-scam.
Again, mathematics tells the story.
With enough paid submissions a gallery doesn’t even have to sell art or
mount a juried exhibition to be profitable!
And here’s the math:
Suppose a ‘gallery’ puts out a call for submissions; this could be for
a juried show or a simple ‘opportunity.’
Let’s use an average fee of $30.00 per submission. Since gallerists always complain of
‘overwhelming’ numbers of submissions let’s use a large-ish figure of 800
submissions per month.
$30.00 x 800 = $24,000.00
Now, if you never received a communication that indicated they
actually saw your work it is quite
possible they never looked at
it. You may or may not have been the
victim of an actual scam but what we are absolutely positive of is they got your money and you got nothing.
Do you see how easy it is to perpetrate a ‘pay-to-view’ or
‘pay-to-display’ scam? Receiving (I
don’t use the word ‘earn’) that kind of money means the ‘gallery’ doesn’t have
to do anything to run a profitable
business. They don’t even have to sell art!
I’m not saying that every gallery that charges a ‘review fee’ is a
scammer. I am saying that if you send in
money and make your submission and that’s the end of it and you never hear a thing back it’s no different from being scammed, you
could accomplish the exact same thing if you never made the submission and just
tossed your money in the trash.
If you pay a fee, you should get something. At the minimum you should get verification
that your work was seen. Sadly, that’s
often too much to ask so in your own best interest STOP PAYING PEOPLE TO
‘REVIEW’ YOUR ARTWORK!
Imagine if we created a system where the galleries paid the artist to review their works….
Dear Gallery:
There is a $24.00 fee charged to
review my artwork for the possible inclusion in your exhibition. I charge this fee to defray the cost in
streamlining my presentation for you.
More importantly, the fee greatly reduces the number of fruitless
presentations I have to make and insures that you are serious about the
submission. Thank you for your
consideration. Before I open the
portfolio case I must first check my PayPal account for your payment.
Does that strike you as ridiculous and outrageous? It is!
Yet artists DO NOT find it ridiculous when they pay ‘submission fees’ to
galleries. STOP PAYING PEOPLE TO
‘REVIEW’ YOUR ARTWORK!
One final thought of a philosophical nature:
Whenever an artist pays someone MONEY merely to look at, consider or review their artwork the artist gives the
other party tremendous POWER over them.
The artist is conveying a message that their work requires a bribe to be
seen, that, somehow, the artists’ work is isn’t worthy of being seen without
some form of remuneration first. The
very word remuneration means ‘to pay
for services provided,’ yet artists again and again are content to receive no
services in return aside from the hope that some self-proclaimed expert has had
a look at their work. This system is
like a RELIGION where the artist must make a tithe to The Church of the Gatekeeper in order to buy a chance to
potentially reach the audience for their work!
The gallery is nothing without the artist. An artist without a gallery is still an
artist. Think about this carefully. A gallery is a gathering place where art is
displayed. It’s a building with
walls. A gallery can be anywhere; it is
not a unique thing. Art, IS a unique
thing, it is the creative expression of one soul. Art can exist without the gallery, but a
gallery cannot exist without art, it’s just an empty room. Certainly a gallery can be more. A gallery can be a partner, an advocate, a
marketer and a promoter. These are the
services galleries should supply at no charge to the artist. These things should be a part of the 50%
commission the gallery receives for the sale of a piece of art. This is the cost of doing business the same
as an artist absorbs the cost of materials, time and presentation of their
artworks. So long as a gallery can
extract money from artists for doing nothing or next-to-nothing then they will
remain empowered. But, alas, there will
always be more artists than galleries so this system will remain in place,
aided and abetted by dumbass artists who willfully throw money at false hope. Use your power! Keep your money!
