Step-by-step plan exhibiting
You can hire a space yourself and organise your own exhibition or have your work exhibited by a gallery, company or institution. In the last case, they will carry out part of the organisation.
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1. Search for exhibition spaces
Determine the most important goal of the exhibition for yourself: is that selling your work, would you like to keep your network in the loop or do you mainly want to build a CV? Depending on your goal and target audience, your own studio can serve as an exhibition space or you will search for a different place. Some exhibition spaces are free, while others ask for a fixed amount or a percentage of your sales.
- Make an overview of organisations that suit your work: carefully examine the goal and the target audience of the exhibition space. Examples may include galleries, artists’ institutions or municipal institutions.
- You can also explore alternative exhibition options, such as hospitals, cafés or pop-up stores.
If you have a few potentially suitable places, visit an exhibition there.
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2. Approach an exhibition space
Make an appointment to drop by. Select work for a portfolio and add a recent and relevant CV to accompany it. Take something you can leave behind: a business card or a card with your own work on it for example. Prepare a story about your work and why that suits this exhibition space in particular. In the event of a positive reception, discuss follow-up steps.
3. Make appointments with the exhibition space
If you will be organising the exhibition yourself, make agreements about the period you will be renting the space, the costs, the opening hours and the staffing during opening hours. You are responsible yourself for insurance, the opening and the publicity.
You will agree with a gallery when you exhibit, which work you will exhibit, the price and the commission. The gallery owner usually takes care of the opening, publicity and insurance. Depending on the agreed assignment of tasks, costs and professionalism of the seller, the commission percentage will vary from 10 to 50% of the selling price.
4. Preparing the exhibition
If you exhibit with a gallery, you will select work in consultation. If you rent a space yourself, select work that is well-suited to the space and on the basis of its saleability. Think about framing the work too, where applicable, and consider how you can transport your work (or have it transported). When taking out insurance for the transport and the exhibition, check precisely what is being insured and at what value.
5. Make a budget
Based on the above-mentioned steps, make a budget in which you include, in any case, the costs for the gallery or exhibition space, insurance, publicity costs and the opening. Examine whether there are elements that you could have sponsored or subsidised.
6. Arrange the publicity
If you don’t have a gallery owner who arranges publicity, draw up a plan yourself in good time. Make a list of addresses and arrange professional publicity material: photos of representative work, text about your work for a press release and publicity, business cards and other material that you can give away. Also provide images that you can use as a pre-announcement on social media.
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7. Organise the opening and the running period
The opening is the most important moment of your exhibition. Determine a start and end date and arrange the following yourself or with the gallery owner:
- Drinks, snacks and an opening activity;
- Guest list;
- A price list of your work (multiple copies). Indicate whether your work can also be rented and/or bought in instalments;
- Red and green dots (stick a dot somewhere in advance);
- Guest book.
Use this time yourself to actively network: think about who you would like to speak to beforehand and keep your business cards at hand.
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8. Ensure there is a proper follow-up
Making sure all matters surrounding the exhibition are settled properly is important. Examples include:
- Settling financial matters;
- Thanking those people who have helped you;
- Fulfilling promises and agreements, such as sending material;
- Maintaining interesting contacts; updating address lists on the basis of the guest book;
- Making agreements with people who were not at the opening;
- Making agreements about picking up unsold work; arrange transport the insurance thereof again;
- Evaluate the organisation of the exhibition and the exhibition run with the people involved;
- Use the exhibition and the exhibition run for new content on social media.