Gallery representation PROs and CONs

Navigating the gallery system can be overwhelming for artists.
Galleries offer invaluable exposure, connections, and obviously a way to sell your art, but they require artists to give up a degree of control and profit.
This guide dives into what it truly means to be represented by a gallery, helping artists decide if this path aligns with their goals.

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PROs of gallery representation

1. Ready to show

Those who want to be shown in museums, or who have hard-to-place, niche artwork for whom galleries exist (hello, outsider artwork!) – you are the ones who need galleries.

2. Ready to do the work

Working with a gallery often requires the nitty-gritty that artists hate: all the clerical work of naming and measuring their pieces, remembering the year they were created, and writing it all down.

If you’re not willing to do the work (or haven’t been doing that as you go!) you’re probably not (ever) going to be ready to work with a gallery. It’s definitely not all the fun and games of simply putting your art on the walls and selling it.

3. Ready to negotiate

First, you have to be ready to negotiate your contract with the gallery and to confirm what the gallery-artist split is. Usually, the standard split is 50-50. This might be different depending on the status of the artist, or if you’re working with a non-profit space, but it MUST be hammered out at the start of your relationship. Without a written agreement, you are leaving yourself vulnerable. Don’t let discomfort with confrontation, conflict or asking questions make you avoid necessary questions.

4. Artwork pricing

The second question is pricing your work. This is arguably an even more complicated issue than the artist-gallery split. There are many factors that go into pricing your work. If you’re not comfortable with working with the gallery and coming up with prices that suit both of you, working with a gallery may not be in the cards.

5. Investment in your art

If you have alternative channels or want to limit yourself to art fairs where individual artists can participate, then more power to you! Especially because that probably means you have multiple thousands of dollars to bet on yourself and your art. On the other hand, letting a gallery take that gamble on you and your art instead can avoid that financial risk.

6. Marketing, promotion, logistics…

One of the main reasons that successful artists (and yet-to-be successful ones) continue to work with galleries is that they run the “business” side of the art. They do the marketing, the promotion, the logistics, the art handling and installation, the inventory, etc., in addition to selling the art.

7. Networking

Everything is a trade-off: the reason to go to a gallery is to make your life easier – the gallery can introduce you to new collectors, new markets, and new media contacts, but you can do that all on your own!

CONs of gallery representation:

1. Just started out as an artist

Just finished your first masterpiece? You may wonder, “How do I get represented by a gallery?” Your first move shouldn’t be to contact your local art gallery. Galleries can be excellent resources for artists, but usually, a better first step for fledgling artists will be a local art association. They will often run shows where you can enter your work and start racking up accolades and also get to know more seasoned artists – all of whom will have loads of advice (and perhaps contacts!) for you.

2. You don’t want to sell your art

If you don’t actually want to sell “your babies”, don’t talk to a gallerist. Oftentimes gallerists will meet with very promising artists but will realize they either have no interest in selling their work or will price it so astronomically high (with no prior sales data to back up such prices) that it is virtually unsellable. If you want to sell your work, be ready to listen to a voice of reason.

3. You are not willing to share profit

You may wonder, “What percentage does an art gallery take?” Alas, galleries are a retail business, and they are selling art. The piece an artist provides is essentially the item at wholesale cost, marked up 100% to retail.

Artist takes home 50%, the gallery the other 50%.

The only difference is that the work is on consignment. If selling your work and only receiving 50% of the price rubs you the wrong way, perhaps a different sales model might suit you better!

4. You don’t know what kind of artist you are

Knowing what kind of artist you are can help you to focus your artistic efforts in a more targeted manner rather than having a scattershot approach that may be less successful.

5. You don’t know what you want from your artistic career…

… nor how to get there.

While art galleries and curators may have an idea of your potential as an artist, nothing beats knowing where you want your career to go.

Beyond your endpoint, what will it require to get there?

• Do you need a gallery in New York?
• What about a co-op?
• Would a community of like-minded artists where you’re guaranteed consistent shows be a good fit?
• Would a coastal vacation town suit you better?

If you don’t know where to find a gallery or what type of gallery you need, you’re not ready.

6. You haven’t researched gallery-artist relationships

Relationships with art galleries are all different and go far beyond simply having someone else sell your art.

• Will the gallery be representing you and all your art or just a few consigned pieces for a certain duration?
• Are you willing to work with someone else?
• Are you willing to write an artist statement?
• To do the work of logging all the information of your artwork?

No one can do that for you (unless you hire an intern or an artist’s assistant!).

7. You’re not comfortable talking about money

No one really enjoys talking about money, but there are two different aspects of money discussions that are primordial to working with a gallery:

8. You love running your own art business

One question to ask yourself (again) is why you want to work with a gallery? What is a gallery going to do for you as an artist? Remember that you will be giving away approximately 50% of your revenue to someone else in exchange for… what? What will you gain?

9. You have your own retail space or collectors

If you have a studio (or another space open to the public), or even a website or social media page where you have enough traffic that you’re able to sell your works without the assistance of a middleman, why bother getting a gallery involved?

10. You are not interested in art fairs

One of the toughest nuts to crack if you’re an individual artist is the mid to high-end art fair market, and yet this is often how artists either launch their career and where galleries (at least pre-Covid) would make their biggest sales of the year.