Recently all my spare time and brain space has been taken up with organising an exhibition. As an emerging artist without a gallery to represent me, I must book the space, market the event, pay for it all, cater the opening and make the work. Luckily a fellow artist friend is joining me for a joint exhibition, this makes the process both easier and more difficult, but it is definitely good for bouncing ideas and sharing the work load. I am exhibiting digital images printed on cotton paper and my friend Amanda is showing porcelain, both functional and non functional sculptural pieces. While our mediums are very different, they work well together within the context of our theme.

The process…

BEGIN
A few things to think about before you jump in - what sort of space would suit your style of work? budget, do you have a friend or two who you could work with and whose work compliments yours? - You might want to choose an exhibition partner with some complimentary skills, perhaps with marketing or publicity experience.

SPACE
Next you need to look at spaces that are available, project spaces, contemporary art spaces, artist run spaces etc. Most of these have an application process which usually involves providing images and a proposal. Other ideas might be to approach a local cafe or boutique and ask if they would allow you to show your work there, or even an empty warehouse. Also consider that most artist run spaces require you to sit the space yourself, so you need to factor in what time you have to do this - and how long you want the exhibition to run when applying for a space.

THEME
So you have your space booked and a date set. A theme or central idea for your show will bring your work together. This is quite important as a lot of exhibitions are criticised for being ‘bitsy’, not addressing the theme and the work not relating to each other.

MARKETING
You are busy busy making new work, perhaps also choosing a few older pieces that will work within the context of your show. During this process however don’t forget publicity and marketing. I often think this is the most important part and the most tedious and stressful. How do you get publicity for your show? There are quite a few avenues that most artists often don’t think about, or if they do it is too late.
# A press release, keep it short and sweet, well written and relevant, include a CD with some print ready images as well, send this a week or two before the opening to local newspapers and press. Make sure you check who the arts editor is and address it directly to them. When writing a press release you need to include the title of the exhibition and the opening date - is there a reception planned? who is opening it? Next you need a few lines on the artist[s], who are they, what is their work about, relevance etc, write it in the third person and get a friend to edit it for you.
# Magazines: send print ready images, with complete caption and a short artist bio, to visual arts magazines that are relevant to your medium or theme, make sure you send these 4-8 weeks in advance.
# Check what free listings are available in your area, if you are exhibiting with a project space or artist run space, they will probably have a lot of this information gathered already, but it doesn’t hurt to look at extra options too.
# An invitation or publicity postcard is almost mandatory these days, but does not have to be expensive, ask around and get a few quotes before printing. Make sure you have all the necessary info, dates, names etc don’t put artist bio but do choose your best image and get a full colour print - it really is worth it.
# Free mail out: some contemporary art spaces or craft spaces have a 4-6 weekly mail out that you can get your invitation into for a small sum or sometimes free if you help to stuff envelopes for a couple of hours, often this requires a minimum number of invitations (around 250 minimum) so factor this in when thinking about how many invites to have printed.
# Print ready images… what are these exactly. Well most magazines and newspapers are always on the lookout for good images to print, but they often don’t have the time to chase them up. So if a good image comes there way via CD in the mail with all the info they need then it is quite probable it will be printed. If taking images of your work yourself you need to consider lighting and detail and installation shots, images need to be in focus and look professional (you may want to consider have a couple of professional images taken or bug your photographer friends to help you out.) Images must be at a high enough resolution for printing, most magazines will not consider images that are under 300dpi. For each image include proper caption info, this includes artist name, title of work (is it a detail or installation shot), medium/materials, date.

OPENING NIGHT
# Catering: The time has arrived the night is upon you. What food and drinks will you have? Most openings will have food of some sort and wine. What is your budget? I would suggest no matter how small the budget buy bottle wine not cask, and hire glasses don’t use plastic. This might be a bit snobby, but remember that some of the people you have invited will be from the local paper and hopefully local commercial galleries there to review and check out your work, you need to impress. But after saying that, you don’t need to buy expensive wine, you could try cleanskins or local budget wines. Don’t forget a non-alcoholic alternative too. Food - simple finger food - quantity is important, simplicity is good. Cheese platters, olives, dips, bread and crackers go down well.
# Speaches: Is someone opening the show? Speaches? Many openings have a speach of some sort, perhaps you as the artist will like to open your own show - but it is often better to get someone to talk about your work for you. A more established artist friend, or lecturer from art school, or someone knowledgeable about art who appreciates your work. Keep the speaches short though - 3-5 mins each is plenty and no more than 3 people please. You might like to make your opening a bit more of an event, with live performers, some performance art perhaps?

MONEY
How are you going to pay for it all? Going in with a group of friends does help to defray some costs, but did you know that you can get a grant for an exhibition? States and cities have an arts funding body where they often have bi-annual funding rounds - sometimes more often, there is usually a lot of paperwork to fill out to apply, and you often need to be organised enough to do it at least 6 months in advance, but when you have the money it is worth it. Other ways of getting money include asking local business for sponsorship (you can offer them a logo on your invitation)

ME ME ME
Well my show is less than 5 weeks away. I had a brief panic about work when I couldn’t find certain slides and images I had planned on using. I needed to re-shoot and re-think it a bit. Another hicup last week was looking for a printer for the invitations, my friend who I am exhibiting with has a tighter budget than me, so we really had to compromise on size and print run, we didn’t compromise on colour quality though.

A few weeks ago we finally decided on the name of the show - we had actually decided months ago when we applied for the space, but since then Amanda had changed her mind as she had participated in a couple of group shows with a similar name. We needed to think. We hashed it out over coffee, then over wine, then more coffee, before hitting upon what we hope is the perfect name. We both love it (very important) and it fits our idea (also very important) and hopefully it is not too esoteric for the audience (also important, but we do like to be a bit mysterious and hopefully get some interest).

Now the panic is in designing the invites, (my job) and getting them printed and sending them out (Amanda’s job). Then we have to do the press release, I have written it already, (there are some advantages to working for an art magazine), and sending it out too. There are lots of last minute details, and then finishing making the art too (slight panic there as well).

If anyone has any exhibition stories to share, I would love to hear them.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 18th, 2006 at 8:51 am and is filed under creativity+community. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.