An art gallery nurtures visual artists, promotes their work, and exposes it to the public, collectors, media, and cultural institutions. In doing so, the gallery serves as a bridge between artists and the art market, both locally and internationally. Despite this enormous responsibility, the gallery is still not well understood by many people. The following are some common misconceptions about galleries.
The main role of the gallery is to build a portfolio of artists (or artist estates) that the gallery commits to representing and promoting over a long-term collaboration, often several years. Those artists are known as represented artists, and those artists who collaborate with the gallery for one specific exhibition are referred to as exhibited artists.
In addition to building a curated portfolio of artists and organizing exhibitions, the gallery is responsible for the artwork sales and distribution. This includes invoicing, tracking sold works, monitoring the value of the artwork on the secondary market, and taking care of the logistical and administrative aspects of getting the artwork from the artist to the collector.
The gallery also takes care of communication with the collectors, including arranging for shipping and insurance, and providing documentation of the transaction. Additionally, the gallery may take on or help arrange a book publishing project for an artist.
Ideally, the gallery will engage in public relations activities such as participating in art fairs to promote its artists internationally. It may also seek out and collaborate with newspapers and art magazines to publish articles and write reviews about the artists, their work, and upcoming shows.
When writing reviews, it is important to be clear and concise. Avoid vague, “creative” forms of writing like poems, stream-of-consciousness rants, quotes from works of fiction, or terse elliptical statements that don’t clearly speak to the meaning of the artist’s work. Instead, focus on describing the artwork through a clear lens, and if possible, connect the work to the artist’s previous practice.
It is also important to remember that the gallery will ultimately make money with each sale of an artwork. As such, it is in the gallery’s best interest to do the work needed to push artists and sell their work, as the more successful the artists are, the better the gallery will be.
A common question from photographers starting out is whether or not it is necessary to include some form of text on each gallery page, above the thumbnails. The answer is a strong YES. Each gallery should have a short paragraph of text that clearly explains the images, what they are all about, and why the gallery was put together in the first place. This can be done either above or below the thumbnails, depending on the layout of your website. This is a very important part of creating a professional photography website and should not be overlooked. Having this text will make your gallery pages more recognizable to the viewer and will greatly increase the likelihood of a sale.