Three Secrets to Achieving Gallery Representation

One of the most common questions artists have is about achieving gallery representation. In this episode, I present three ways to improve your chances of representation: research, connection and understanding the actual mechanics of selling art and how a gallery operates. I also cover the importance of maintaining a database to track your approaches, the best way to maintain a positive relationship with your gallery, and more.

Gallery website: www.JenTough.gallery
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Jen Tough 0:00

Welcome to Tough on Art, the podcast for artists interested in ways to get ahead in today's art market. I'm Jen Tough owner of Jen Tough Gallery and the Artist Alliance community. Join me for some down to earth talk about the best ways for artists to navigate this new and different landscape. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Tough on Art. I'm Jen Tough. And today we're going to talk about the three secrets that are going to boost your chances of gallery representation. Okay. So this is all always what everybody wants to know. What artists want to know is how can I get into an art gallery? And for those of you who know me I always suggest that that shouldn't be your primary goal. Your primary goal should be getting your workout, building your audience, and really taking your career in the direction that you want to take on your own. So that means learning about marketing. It means learning about how to do art fairs. It means learning about how to display your work properly, how to network with people. Because I've, as I've said, also a million times before the art world is totally based on relationships. So one of the best things that you can do is spend your time just meeting people in a really natural way. But today we're going to talk about. Three secrets that are going to boost your chances of gallery representation. Now, these might seem when I go over them, that they're really obvious, but I'm going to tell you that they're actually really rare in my experience that artists really take the time doing these things. I think lots of times they think maybe I know enough and I'm going to go ahead and approach the gallery anyway. And they really haven't done their homework. So let's go ahead and start with number one, know all about the gallery before you approach them. Okay. So definitely do your research, find out what kind of exhibitions they do. Find out who they're representing, find out how long they've been in business. You want to be able to really know everything that you can from the beginning of their business, to the end of their business, who are the primary people at the gallery? What kind of work do they show? Did they do solo shows? Do they represent people? What is their business model? You know, some galleries are, non-profit, some are commercial, so their business model is going to really vary. And it's really important that you know how that business model works. And that's going to be our number three thing that I'm gonna talk to you about, but let's, let's go on and talk. Talk about. What to know about the gallery before you approached them. So how do you find this stuff out? Well, first you're obviously going to start on the website. If they're not local you're going to want to read everything that you can, study up on the shows they've done. This is the one way that galleries. Can really express their own creativity is, you know, the work that they show, how they show it, how they display it how long those shows are, what the themes are of those shows. If they're group shows these are the kinds of things that you're going to need to know that gives you an inside. Insight into their business. And also lets you know, you know, what kind of people they are by the creativity that they, you know, put forth in their exhibitions. Okay. You know, maybe they, they follow a really standard model where they represent artists and then they have, you know, rotating solo shows of their represented artists with group shows. And they have a smaller, stable. And then they also bring in other artists for group shows. You know, these are all the things that you definitely, definitely need to know before you approach, long before you approach. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, is that you want to connect with the gallery before you approached them. And connecting is really simple in this day and age. Okay. It's you know, if with social media newsletters, websites, it's really easy to connect with that gallery. Now, a lot of, you know, a lot of artists always ask, how do I connect with galleries who are out of, you know, out of my area. Well, you know, social media websites, their newsletter are all ways to do it. So that's the first thing you want to do is sign up for their news letter. This is also going to give you information about what they're doing, which is also our number one, you know, knowing all about the gallery. So what exhibitions do they have coming up? You're going to be able to find out in their newsletter, what new artists are they representing and make sure you read the newsletter and, know what they're, you know, know what they're up to. This is a way to, you know, the first easiest, absolutely easiest way to connect. With a gallery. And, and on that note it's also important that you know, remember that you signed up for their newsletter don't unsubscribe at some point or worse report them for spam. I've had that happen. I never add people to my email without their consent. And I've had people report me for spam, which on, you know, on our end, you know, after they've signed up for the newsletter, which is such bullshit because on my end with my email service provider, if you get reported for spam, a certain number of times, it can really affect your reputation with that email service provider and they can even. Stop working with you, if you have a lot of spam reports. So definitely don't report a gallery where you signed up for their email for spam. I think a lot of people are really unaware about how this works and that galleries are small businesses. I mean, unless we're talking about. The huge guys, which we're not we're now we're not really talking about Hauser and Wirth or David Zwirner, you know, or any of those big, huge, multi location galleries. We're talking more about like, you know, the smaller and mid tier galleries. Okay. So, understand that you know, the gallery is going to be informed if you report them for spam or if you an unsubscribe, they're going to know. That's not really a good look when you're going to approach them, right? Like they're probably gonna email, you know, look in their email box. That's the first thing I do. Like if I have a, an artist you have never heard of before, I'm going to search my emails to see if we've had any of conversations and what they've been. And if I, if it shows up that you're, you know, you've reported me for spam and then you're trying to get in one of my shows. I, that's not going to go over too well. I mean, it wouldn't go over really well with anybody, would it? I mean, it probably wouldn't go over well with you. So okay. So back to number two, connecting with a gallery before you approach. So the first thing you want to do is the newsletter. Okay. Play nice with the newsletter, open it up, read it, know what they're doing? Don't unsubscribe and don't report them for spam. Okay. And in this meantime, I should preface all of this by saying, you've got to start a database. And that doesn't mean a database like artwork archive, where your, you know, just date, you know, creating a database of your finished works and where the location is. That's important, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is creating a database of all the galleries that you, you know, the galleries that you want to approach. When you approach them, how you approach them, what their response was. Okay. So this is the only way that you can keep track. And one of the things that's really important is that you are hitting them up again in a different way. Like, let's say you send postcards and then two months later you send an email. You need to keep track of all those things. If you get no response from three approaches, and you're definitely going to want to take them off your list for a year. Now, the only way to keep up with this is to have a database so you can use, I use air table, which I love and this a little bit of a monthly fee. Like I think it's like 15 bucks or something. You can also use that air table for keeping track of all your artwork, where it is when it's sold, things like that, who it sold to. So, so it's a great thing for that. You can also use Excel, which scares me, or you can use a numbers, which is on a apple Macintosh, or there's also Google sheets, which is free and it's online. So it doesn't matter what kind of computer you have. It's totally up to you, but you have to do. So connecting with the gallery. Number two, again, we're going back to that. After you've signed up for their newsletter, you're going to want to follow them on social media. Now, those two things seem so obvious, but you would be shocked how few people do that. And, you know, and I think why do they even, you know, this is for my end, for me from a gallery's point of view. You know, if someone approaches me, I just got an email this morning from a person who wanted me to represent them. And they're not in my artist's community. I had never seen their name before. They're not on my newsletter list. They don't follow me on social media. And I'm thinking, why would you even, you know, approach me? Because you know, you obviously have no idea. Anything about me, you know? So that just seems really you know, really one sided or like, you know, I kind of feel like, well, she must be sending this email out to every single gallery in the world. And that's not really a good look either. So connecting with the gallery on social media and newsletter, so on social media, you know, for the galleries that you really, really like, you know, follow them and comment, just comment. And they're going to start seeing your name over and over again, and it's going to stick. So, you know, do that for a long time. You're not going to have any direct results from that that you're going to see, but what's going to happen is, is that in all likelihood, the gallery or whoever is running their social media and their marketing is going to know that this person they're going to see your name popping up again and again and again. And what's the, what this is doing is sort of warming up. The email that you're going to send first, right? You want to do all of these things before you get to that place where you are sending an email. Okay. And this might be months, you know, several months, I would say at least three months of commenting on that gallery social media feed. You know, particularly Instagram, I would just, you know, focus on Instagram. You've got the newsletter. Okay. So now if they're within driving distance, go to their next opening, you don't want to be selling yourself there. You might want to just introduce yourself. Hi, I'm so-and-so. And maybe if you've been commenting on social media you know, they might recognize your name. If you have gotten their newsletter, if you get the chance to meet the gallery owner or, you know, one of the senior people at the gallery, you can say. You know, wow. I really loved the show. You did a couple months ago. You know, that would be a great way to break the ice, right. With you know, with a gallery director, if you happen to go in person. So if you can go in person, definitely go in person. Obviously don't want to be asking the gallery to do anything for you. You're just getting to know people. You're just, you know, it's sort of like dating, you know, you're just, you don't want to move too quickly. You just, you just want to get to know each other, you know, you want to take things super slow. This is not a fast process, you know, just like with creating your work. This is not this isn't, this isn't, this doesn't happen overnight. It's, you know, you're learning and learning and learning and, you know, evolving and changing. And that's exactly where you should be. Okay. You can't just like walk into a gallery and expect the gallery owner to be like, oh my God, your work is amazing. And I'm going to show you right now. And here's a solo show. You know, that just that doesn't happen behind the scenes is this long nurturing of a relationship before they will even open the door to talk to you. And that is because, you know, it's trust, right? It's trust. It's building a relationship. It's getting to know you and really going Gaga over your work. Okay. So, okay, so, so far we've gotten sign up for the, for the newsletter. Number one, number two, you're going to be following them on social media and commenting. This is all off my head by the way you guys. So I'm just trying to totally remember. And number three is if you can go to the openings, go to the openings. They might give workshops. They might have some sort of special event that you can be involved with. And also here's where your database is going to come in. Right. Because that's where, you know, sometimes you can feel like, oh my God, I tried so hard to get in that gallery. And they didn't even answer my email. Well, if you have this database, you might be able to go back and see like, oh, well it looks like I never signed up for their newsletter. I never commented on social media or even followed them. And I, you know, and all I did was send this one email. You know, so having this database where you can track what you did and when you did it, and when the response was for gallery, XYZ is going to be hugely helpful. Hugely really it's the only way to know. Did I really try hard? Did I, did I do all those things that I should do? Or did I just send a blinding. Right. And the thing is we're sending a blind email. It's not really that there's anything like horribly wrong with it because there isn't. But the thing that, that, that is like sucky about it is that when you most likely are not going to hear back, if you didn't do any relationship building prior, right? It's just going to become this like blind email to the gallery. They're not going to know who you are. Right. And then the artist doesn't hear back from the gallery and they get really upset and disgruntled, or they feel rejected, right. When it has nothing to do with the artist's work. It's purely because the gallery doesn't know who you are. Okay. So connecting before the first approach is super important. Find any way that you can to get to know and connect with that gallery that you're interested in. And this is after of course you have researched the shit out of good galleries that you're interested in all over the country, and you're going to plug those in to your database. Okay. So there's going to be multiple galleries. That you're going to be doing this with not just one. Okay. And how you organize those is totally up to you. Like maybe you have, you know, your number one gallery, number two, your number three, you know, and then, you know, you can go through, you could spend more priority of your time because obviously nobody has time to do all this. I realized that you know, you can, you can prioritize the galleries that are really on the top of your list, but if you're not getting any response, Then, you know, you might want to go down to, you know, three, four and five on your list. Right. So definitely connect with the gallery. Okay. So number three, our final one is know all about the gallery business. Okay. And this is something that I find astounding. I was really shocked. That so many artists had no idea how a gallery makes money, how the business works, what the expectations are for them as an artist it's, it's, it's so common. I've learned now that it it's, it's actually exceedingly rare when you meet an artist who, even if they've been a professional artist for years and years, and have been represented, but who really understand the business, that's, that's just amazing to me. And, and I think that. One of the best things that an artist can do to make them really appealing to a gallery is to really understand how the business works, to really understand how a gallery makes money, how a gallery stays afloat, what the expectations are for an artist. So for instance, One of the things that I've sort of been watching in, in the art world and, and in the gallery business is, you know, there's there, there's always a real interest with representing younger artists because the idea is with younger artists, like, so, so the idea goes, and for gallerists is that if you know, with younger artists, you have, you can nurture their career. And then towards the end of their career, you can really be selling their work for a lot of money. Now what I think artists don't understand, no matter if they're older or younger, is that when a gallery let's say, you know, starts representing you starts investing their time and their space to that artist and that artist's career they're really going in the red to do that. Right. Because if the artist isn't known and they give that artist a solo or two or three person show lets say. And their gallery space, the only gallery space they have their stores essentially. Right. And they're like, you know, let's say with that choice. They could be selling, like, if you were a shoe store, let's say, and you're going to take the risk of only selling, you know, blue Nike's, let's say in that shoe store and nothing else, that's kind of like what a solo show is, especially if the artist isn't extremely well-known and doesn't have a big audience already. So you're taking a huge risk by selling, trying to, you know, using your gallery space, your entire gallery space for, you know, a show for an artist who is, who is not known. Okay. It's a massive risk. That's a risk that galleries often take in order to sell the work down the line at a higher price. When the artist is more well known. So the other things that go into this is that when an artist isn't known and they, they bring them on to sign them. And this is, this is more of a commercial gallery, like the standard sort of gallery. I'm not talking about like galleries that might also sell jewelry or, or other things, or they have a different model. I'm talking about like the very traditional model. So anyway, the other thing that galleries spend money and time on is marketing. You know, they're, they're using their social media platform, let's say for promoting that artist. Okay. They're making books or they're making postcards and they're, you know, talking about the work, they're learning all about the artists. So when they have an opening or any other time, they can always talk about, you know, where the artists lives, where the artists went to school, they know everything about the artists. So when a buyer might ask some questions, which happens all the time, they know all that information. So there's a lot of time and energy that goes into it, that the artist isn't really seeing, and they're not really aware of. But understanding how the gallery business works is extremely important. So let's say an artist has a solo show and the gallery asks, you know, Hey, six months after the solo show, all the pieces that are in this show are going to go through the gallery. Now I've had a lot of, you know, only the only the pieces that were in that show, let's say for the next six, And here's, you know, a lot of artists get really pissed off about that because they don't understand. And it's like, well, wait a minute. You know, the gallery gave you their entire space. They did all this. They did promotion for you. They promoted you. They learned about you. They talk about you and you're not there. Cause usually artists are just there at the opening. They don't understand that every day that the gallery is open when their artwork is on the wall, that the person who owns the gallery or other people who work there are discussing that work with the people who might be coming in. Okay. So it's a lot of energy and time and money that goes into you know, promoting artists that artists aren't really seeing. They're not really seeing that on their end. They usually just go to the openning. Okay. So let's say that during this, during this a solo show, let's say it's a solo show and you know, people are coming in and they're seeing obviously it's, you know, artists XYZ and they are selling, you know, works 1, 2, 3. And let's say that this person who came into this gallery saw work number two. And they they're like, wow, I really love that piece. You know, they talk to the gallerist about it. They found out all about the artist from the gallerist, et cetera, et cetera. They got, you know, some information, their CV, things like that, that the gallery has had for them. And then they go home and they contact the artist director. Okay. So if there isn't a six month you know, lock on that work, that's shown in that show after the show comes down it's, it's really difficult to keep track of If that work, you know, one of those works sold to somebody, you know, right, like the minute the show went down, which I've had happened before and it's infuriating. So it's why is this important? As far as like knowing the gallery biz for artists, it's important because you then understand where the gallery, where the gallery is, is coming from. If you happen to know what their rent was like, say three to $5,000. You know, you already know just for rent, the gallery has to, you know, six to 10,000, sell six to $10,000 worth of art to just pay the rent. Doesn't pay salaries. It doesn't pay electricity. It doesn't play pay, you know, heat doesn't pay water, anything. Taxes insurance is a huge one. So there's a lot of art that has to be sold and it's extremely risky. So if that work isn't sold by the gallery you know, especially when they're showing artists who are not well known and they have no guarantee of sales. You know, it's a huge investment and trust on the gallerists part. Okay. So sometimes what can happen is artists feel like, well, this is my work. I don't care if it was in a show with XYZ gallery, I'm going to sell it anyway because my show was a month ago or something like that. You know, it's really difficult for an artist to know where that buyer might've come from. And in all likelihood, they probably saw their work or was introduced to that artist's work from the gallery, a social media account because usually galleries have larger social media followings than artists, solo artists do. It's one of the benefits of being with a gallery, right. So that's something for artists to keep in mind is because a lot of times I hear from artists, oh, my gallery doesn't do anything for me. They do nothing for me. My work hasn't sold, they haven't sold anything for me. And, you know, either they leave disgruntled and angry because they feel like they deserved better. They feel like they deserve more, you know, attention. But what I think is important about understanding how the gallery business works is knowing. How much time and money a gallery is really putting into an artist's career. When the artist is really thinking like, oh, they're not doing anything for me, my work isn't selling. And it must be their fault. There's just a lot of moving parts with it. And I think that a lot of times artists feel like you know, they're entitled to sell their work on their own. And I think it's important to just keep in mind that it might not be. You know, right in front of, you know, right in front of the artist's face in a sense like what the gallery is doing for them, you know, when they're not around, for instance. So it's important to, to understand how the gallery business works, because when you understand how a gallery stays afloat, and there's very few galleries who are making a lot of money, very, very few, there needs to be some kind of loyalty to what that gallery has done for that artist. What they've done for you in the past, there needs to be now what happens if there isn't that kind of mutual respect and understanding and communication, you know, artists are selling work. That's where you hear about, you know, artists selling work behind a gallery's back that's it can become really muddled and gray. But I think the key to it is, is understanding what a gallery is doing that isn't directly just, oh, sale ABC, because sometimes sales take like years and years for an artist's career to really pick up. Right. And it's important to know that the gallery is, is banking on, they have a longterm view. Of that relationship. It's not just one show and the show sells out or it doesn't, you know, it's not, it's not just about that. It's that the gallery is willing to go in the red to promote that artist now. So later they can both do better financially. So when an artist sells work, You know, just a couple months after a solo show, for instance, and they, and the gallery doesn't know, but that person, you know, the person who bought that work, saw it at the gallery, you know, or saw it on the gallery social media, isn't there, you know, isn't there, shouldn't there be some kind of understanding or acknowledgement that you know, most likely that buyer came to the artist via the gallery. It's just something to think about. And I think that the more that a artist that an artist knows about the gallery business, the better it's going to be for them to develop a really positive relationship with that gallery because galleries talk and, you know, when you intentionally or unintentionally burn a bridge with a gallery. It's not really, it's not going to do you any good as an artist. It's certainly, you know, It might not make any difference, but it very well, it very well could. So, so how do you prevent that? Because I think, you know, 99% of the time, these kinds of things are completely unintentional. What you can do is know how the gallery stays in business. Are they a commercial gallery? Do they, do they have to pay taxes? Do they have to make a certain amount of money every month? You're not going to. That amount of money is, but you can kind of estimate based on where they're, you know, where the gallery is located or where that, you know, what their overhead might be. Well, then you have to double that basically for the amount of art that the person has to sell the gallery because 50% goes to the artist. So knowing how that process works is going to be really, really positive for any gallery that might want to start a relationship with that artist. If they know how the business works. I mean, you know, people who, you know, make, let's say they make food products, let's say they make kombucha or something. They don't, you know, they need to understand who selling it. They need to understand that business, right? Like, it's totally, you know, how does, how does this, how does a store stay in business when they're selling my kombucha? You know, who's, who's the customer, who's the, how are they? What would be their incentive of picking up my kombucha? It's the same thing with art, see exact same thing. You know, as far as the, you know, as the financial transactions go and there's, you know, it's all about relationship building and the more you understand how a gallery operates, how they make money why it's important to be loyal to a gallery for a long period of time. You know, even if sales dip for a while, You have, you need to remember like, well, you know, last year it was pretty good this year. It isn't maybe it's because I changed my style. Maybe it's because I'm doing things completely differently than I was. And these other pieces sold better. Knowing how the gallery stays afloat is critical. Knowing how the gallery system works is critical. It's going to make you way more appealing for any gallery who wants to represent you. If you have a strong understanding of how the process works, and you can find out this information by, you know, online by reading about galleries, by knowing if the gallery is non-profit. In other words, they don't have to pay taxes, they can get donations. That's huge. You know, that's a, that's a huge difference between a commercial gallery. So these are all, you know, it takes time and it takes research, but these three things are definitely the best ways to boost your chances of gallery representation, outside of your work of course. So number one was to go through them again, know all about the gallery before you approach them. Don't, don't go in blind, learn about them, be interested, you know, find out and discover if you want to be part of that ecosystem with them. Number two, connect with a gallery before approach, social media, email list. If they have something else going on, sign up for it. And number three, know all about the gallery business, financially. How the, how the process works with representation. How has, how their show system works, especially with solo shows. So I hope this helps. And if you have any questions, you can email me at info@jentough.gallery. And if you're interested in joining the Artists Alliance it's artistsalliancemembership.com have a great day. And thanks for listening. Thank you so much for listening and supporting this podcast. Your support means everything. If you'd like to learn more about the Artists Alliance community. Send me a question or learn about other events or projects coming up, please visit my website at www.jentough.gallery. See you next time.