Many photographers first think to themselves, “I want to show my work in a gallery.” However, galleries are not the only venue where one can exhibit and sell their work. There’s numerous other opportunities for getting your work out there for viewers and collectors to see and purchase. I will start with most of the types of venues where I have personally exhibited in or where I might have curated a show and then explore other potential types of venues to show your work. This article is just one chapter excerpt of my upcoming book to be released called, Exhibitions, Marketing, Promotion & Publicity – coming soon to Amazon this month.
Galleries
Galleries are a wonderful exhibition experience, especially when it’s your own solo exhibit, but don’t knock group exhibitions in galleries because they too can be excellent exposure – especially for those starting out in exhibiting their work.
I recent group print exhibition in a gallery that I hosted and curated.
I’ve curated over a dozen group exhibitions in NYC, both digital and print, and many of the my first time exhibitors have gone on to show in other galleries and spaces, in both solo and group exhibitions. Once you build that confidence to show and talk about your work, as I describe in my upcoming release on Amazon: Exhibitions, Marketing, Promotion & Publicity, you will feel confident enough to apply to show your work anywhere.
Working With Galleries
To work with a gallery, it’s important to many visit gallery openings, not only to network, but to view what types of work each gallery subscribes to showing. Meet with the curator and/or gallery owner, be polite, ask questions, express interest and if they are interested in hearing more about your work, talk about your work. More often than not, you will need to make an appointment to do this sometime after the opening reception you are attending.
Always have your iPad or mobile phone with your portfolio filed away on it as you never know who you might end up meeting at someone else’s gallery opening.
Once you obtain your own exhibition opportunity, be it group or solo, it’s important to follow a few key tips listed below.
Prompt Responses
Coordination with a curator and/or gallery owner is extremely important. Be sure to answer your emails and phone message in a timely manner. Gallery owners want to know that you remember you have a show. They may have questions or need further information or to provide you with more information about the exhibition, your pieces and/or the space.
Have Examples of Your Work Ready
When a curator or gallery owner requests images of your work – send them ASAP. You do not want to chance not being included in promotional materials, and as a result, not having your work reviewed by the media.
A promotional postcard from a recent exhibition I curated.
As a curator and host of many group exhibitions, I personally create and distribute a lot of promotional materials including postcards with images of exhibitor works, images on our website to stir up interest, emails to my distribution list and press releases that go out to all of of my contacts in the art world as well as newspapers and magazines. I am astonished how I have to pester exhibitors sometimes about getting example images to me for promotional materials, enough so to almost exclude them from a show.
Have Your Work “Ready to Hang”
Never expect a gallery to prepare your work for you. You must always prepare and have your work “gallery-ready”, which means framing your pieces and stinging them up on the back with wires and eye-hooks, etc. Sometimes a gallery will have their own hooks for walls to hang pieces on a wall.
OOK Professional Picture Hanging Hooks
Image courtesy of Home Depot
The last gallery I worked with required and used specific hooks, called OOK Professional Picture Hanging Hooks because they make the least amount of damage to walls and can usually be pushed into a wall without used a hammer (except for plaster walls…) Be sure to ask if hooks are included and if not, ask if they mind you using these particular hooks or if they have a preference in ways to affix your work to their walls.
Identify Your Work and Provide an Inventory List
Be sure to mark each piece of your work with the title, medium and size of the artwork or photograph. For photography, I also like to include where the photograph was taken and if at an art fair or such where you can include a print bin of loose matted prints, the price as well. All of this can be put on a label on the back of your work.
One of my old gallery inventories…
It’s also important to give an inventory to the gallery so that they may price your work. This is typically due when you deliver the work to be hung.
Respect a Gallery’s Marketing
A gallery will send out their own marketing literature and such with their own logo, etc. Never send out any marketing material of your own using the gallery’s information or logo without obtaining their permission first. I prefer to do this in writing to cover my backside.
Stay Out of the Sales Process
If a gallery is dealing with selling your work, do not interfere in the sales process when a sale is made. That is the job of the gallery. You will eventually receive a commission check by the date agreed upon in writing.
Don’t Your Burn Bridges
If you do not get along with a curator or gallery owner, do not be rude or disrespectful. Just remove your work at the end of the exhibition as agreed upon and bring your arrangement to an end in a highly professional manner. You do not want to burn any bridges as curators and gallery owners tend to be well connected and you don’t want prevent yourself from receiving good referrals in the future.
Digital Galleries
Digital galleries are an amazing opportunity to get some exposure, but selling your work may be a little bit tougher. It can be done though. You definitely need to be there to talk with random viewers about your work and steer them toward a sale. I’ve had several exhibitors sell work during a digital exhibition. The great thing about digital shows is that you do not have to spend a lot on upfront costs as you only need to fulfill upon the order coming in.
A digital gallery opening reception exhibition I hosted and curated a few years back.
If nothing else, a digital exhibition will help you to get your name and your work out there for the public to see. Remember anytime there is an opportunity to exhibit, do it. The more you get out there, the more you ARE out there.
Pop-Up Galleries
On galleries, sometimes there are things called “pop-up” galleries where a curator might create an exhibition space in a public space or an empty business space.
A pop-up gallery show by Dacia Gallery I did a few years back called “Art on Broadway”.
It’s good to do your research on the web for potential opportunities to get included in exhibitions in pop-up galleries in your area by finding out requirements, which may be posted on websites or by calling the event coordinator or curator listed for the pop-up space.
Dacia Gallery’s “Art on Broadway” exhibition.
Museums
In Florida, I had the opportunity to have one of my photographs hang for about 6-8 weeks in the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. It was quite an honor to have my work hanging in a museum. While opportunity came to me through a call-to-artists notice, I remember there were still a bunch of requirements to go through to get into this museum at the time. It was quite worth it in the end though. Check in with smaller local museums in your area and find out the requirements for submissions. For more installations, there is usually a proposal involved that you must submit. What to include in the proposal varies from museum to museum.
My street photograph submission into the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts.
Libraries
Getting on as many artist organization lists as possible can sometimes land you showing your work in some unexpected places. I once had the opportunity to show a piece in a large local library in Clearwater, Florida having gotten a call-to-artist notice from a local art organization’s list I had put my name on a year prior. While it wasn’t an opportunity to sell my work, it did give me some good exposure in that town.
Hotel Art and Wine Events
A very unique type of venue I was invited to show and sell my work at on three occasions was at a hotel’s art and wine party. The Quorum Hotel in Tampa, Florida used to organize a weekly solo exhibition in their hotel lobby for local artists to rotate setting up and showing and selling their work at no charge. The hotel would offer up free wine and hors d’oeuvres for about an hour and a half to two hours while the chosen artist would invite a bunch of guests to their solo exhibition to show and sell their work. Not only did artists get to earn the business of people they knew or who were on their business lists, but this was a very busy business hotel so we also received the opportunity to sell to global business folks passing through as well. The hotel did not ask for commission for any works sold. Their primary goal was to offer something different to their guests while boosting hotel and hotel bar business.
I was invited three times for a solo exhibit to show and sell my artwork and photography in a busy hotel lobby in Tampa, Florida.
I sold a majority of the 120+ images in my first year of exhibiting through the three exhibitions I had at this venue and made a lot of money in the process. Whether a hotel offers this type of event or not, speak with local hotels in your area and suggest the idea to them. It would not only benefit bar’s business within the hotel, but their hotel as a whole.
Morning Markets and Street Fairs
Morning Markets
Morning markets are a fun seasonal way to show your work and supplement your income. You can do this by offering different options of your work at different price points, such as framed or unframed and matted or at different sizes, or even offering limited edition prints. Pitching a tent and/or setting up a table to sell your artwork and/or prints is generally a matter of a few simple factors: what you’re selling (some markets tend to limit the number of vendors per category of items they are selling), how much space you are looking for, how long you would like to rent space for and the fee for renting space. Check with the morning market management to find out the criteria for setting up a space within the market and the prices for doing so. Should you find you cannot get into a market venue due to too many vendors all selling photography or art, get on the waiting list. Vendors tend to turn over every quarter.
For a season, I pitched two tents and sold a lot of my work at a Saturday Morning Market in Ybor City, Florida
Street Fairs
Street fairs are a bit similar to morning markets in that people come together with tables and tents and sell things like jewelry, clothing, food and even art and photography.
At a street fair on the Upper West Side in NYC.
Major Art & Photography Events and Expos
There are many major art and photography events that happen in many areas around the world, you just need to listen closely and consistently keep your finger on the pulse of the art world. A couple of well-known events just in NYC are, Photoville and AIPAD’s Annual Event, The Photography Show.
Photoville
Logo courtesy of the Photoville website.
Photoville is an annual 10-day event that takes place at Brooklyn Bridge Park where exhibitions, workshops and artist talks are held in containers. There’s typically also food, alcohol and other beverages available for purchase too. For Photoville you have to a submit a proposal well in advance before you even go through the curatorial process and there’s a very large fee attached to getting involved in Photoville. The payoff, however, is that Photoville is a pretty big deal every year. Companies such as Instagram, National Geographic, The New York Times, TIME Magazine and the Pulitzer Center among many others are curatorial partners at this event. If nothing more, it is a great opportunity for exposure, but the bonus is that you can sell your work there as well.
The Photography Show by AIPAD
The Photography Show, which is put together by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD), now takes place on Pier 94 in New York City. They work with 115 galleries from around the world to find installations for their event. With four new sections – Salon, Gallery, Positions, and Discovery – the Show will offer work from both AIPAD members and new exhibitors, as well as younger galleries, and book dealers and publishers.
The Photography Show at AIPAD
Photo courtesy of the AIPAD website.
Local Community Centers
Sometimes your local community centers will not only facilitate workshops to teach artistic endeavors, but they may sometimes also hold artistic events, such as solo and group exhibitions in their building. Subscribe to local community center event calendar and inquire about potential opportunities to show your work in your local community centers. There may be requirements such as some type of membership, but if you can gain a solo or group exhibition opportunity out of it, sometimes it can be worth it to join.
Local Art Organizations
My entire art and photography career began through monthly competitions with the Tampa Regional Artists at the Old Hyde Park Art Center in Tampa, Florida. For a $5 per piece fee, I was able to hang my work in their center, located in a very expensive area of the city. It would include being able to hang my work there for a month, the opportunity for my work to sell (the gallery sitter’s fee was included…), an opening reception complete with snacks and drinks, a listing in their monthly newsletter plus I was included in a monthly competition wherein I would compete against artists of other mediums such as oils and acrylic painters, mixed media artists and sculptors for cash prizes varying between $50-150 per month and ribbon awards.
My first image to ever win an award happened at TRA.
Not only did I win several awards and sell many pieces there, it was a big gateway to finding other opportunities, making sales in other venues and it, along with another similar organization that I worked with became my first two regular writing assignments as I became a contributing writer for their monthly newsletters, writing on art and interviewing and writing about other artists.
Do a little research on the web to find out all of the local art organizations in your area and check into what they offer, weigh the benefits of submitting work with that organization and find out the requirements for submission should you wish to proceed with submitting work through that organization.
Consignment
Another way of show and selling your work is through consignment to shops, restaurants, bars or other establishments. Consignment means that you pay the establishment a specified amount for the sale of your work after the work is sold.
Shops
Sometimes small shops will allow you to hang your work on consignment on their shop’s wall space in exchange for a flat rate or a small percentage of the sale price as a type of commission. This is a good opportunity to reach buyers because, hey, folks are already in the shop to buy something, so you already have a better chance of selling your piece than if it were hanging in a bar or restaurant.
Restaurants, Bars & Coffee Shops
Like shops, hanging your work in local restaurants, bars and even coffee shops for exhibition and sale is usually done on consignment (unless your work isn’t for sale and in that case a discretionary fee for doing so may or may not be imposed by the establishment…) These are pretty good places to at least get your work seen. I say “at least” as these are not the best places to actually sell your work because, unless you are specifically having an exhibition opening at one of these types of venues, most people are there to do something other than purchasing something for their home, such as to consume food and beverages.
I once had a wonderful opportunity to fill an entire Brooklyn bar with my artwork.
Check with these types of establishments, especially those who are known to exhibit the works of local artists, to see what the requirements are to hang and sell your work on their wall space. Even if these aren’t the best place to actually sell your work, remember, exposure is key, and can lead to sales later down the road.
Online
Your Own Website
If you are in the photography service industry, it’s a “must” to have your own website to show your portfolio, to list more information about your services and/or to have an appointment booking system. While there are many web tools out there to show, sell and even fulfill your work that you produce for sale, it’s also definitely invaluable to have your own website, if for nothing else, than to just have a more personalized web presence.
My fashion and portrait website with links to my photography and artwork for sale.
You can put your artist biography and resume on the website – making it a lot easier for gallery owners and/or potential buyers to view your background. It’s also a great place to either show samples of your work with a link to another website/platform for sales and fulfillment or to contain all of your works for sale and actually sell/fulfill orders yourself. My website for fashion and portrait work also contains a link to my personal work for sale, which includes photography on Fine Art America and paintings through my own shopping cart.
Sell on eBay
If you’re a painter, yes, eBay is an option to sell your work. It’s a great tool as you can actually use the auction feature to have potential buyers bid against each other for your work. This can work for fine art photography as well.
Fine Art America
I stumbled across a great web tool for artists and photographers several years ago, a website called FineArtAmerica.com, which offers a place for one to upload their images, set prices for prints and any novelty items which people could buy with a specific image on it, plus the website offers fulfillment services.
My Fine Art America page.
In addition, you can list any events you might have, register for contests and many other different options on the backend that help to sell and promote your work. My favorite thing is when I get my weekly newsletter on Sundays and I get to see stats of how many views I had to certain images of mine and where in the world the last view came from. More often than not, I get a lot of views from potential buyers abroad.
Etsy and Zazzle
Etsy can be a good place to upload your work for sale as many people know of its existence and as a place to go for niche items. Websites like Zazzle allow you to upload your work, set your prices and allow people to affix your images not only to postcards and stationery for purchase, but also to novelty items such as pillows and playing cards.
Some products that can be customizable at Zazzle.
Other Online Outlets
There are certain so many other online outlets these days where you show and/or sell your work such as Smugmug, 500px, Tumblr and Zenfolio and more.
Now That You Have The “Where”…
If you take your mind off of getting into a gallery, the possibilities on where to show your work is endless. You may not sell your work in some types of venues, but exposure can be just as important as it can lead to the sale of your work later down the road. As a “creative”, get creative! Where have you shown or sold your work?
This article is just one chapter excerpt of my upcoming book to be released called, Exhibitions, Marketing, Promotion & Publicity – coming soon to Amazon this month. You may click on the link above to request more information.
