So, from my quite aggressive title, you may have
guessed that I hate these ‘pay an admin fee to be considered but not
necessarily get in’ art exhibitions. Every time I see some ‘opportunity’ (it’s
not an opportunity if you have to pay for it) like this it makes my tiny head literally
fume. Seriously, I’m like a pot of blimmin’ tea. And I’m generally pretty
chilled out on all accounts.
Now before any of these organiser people start
whinging at me, I know that holding an exhibition has considerable costs. No
need to preach love; I’ve held, paid for and promoted my own solo exhibitions
before. Cry me a river. Asking artists to pay a fee AFTER they’ve been offered
a chance to exhibit is fine. Go crazy. We all gotta make it in business. But
asking for money beforehand is downright batty and mean.
In my youth, I entered many of these so called
exhibitions. I was young and wide eyed, and just wanted to get some of my work
seen. Trying to organise and pay for your own show can be cripplingly
expensive, so applying to enter a joint one seems logical. The same goes for
art competitions too. In the back of your head you hope you will meet some
other artists, generate contacts, maybe even sell something; all the usual
guff. But it’s not quite so straight forward.
These types of paying shows are notorious in and
around London, as they have you by the balls (lady balls if you’re a lady). But
location doesn’t limit them. Three of these types of shows that came into my
radar today are Winter Pride UK (£15 to enter, only shortlisted candidates are
invited to exhibit) British Women Artists (£15 to enter, only one winner, no
chance to exhibit) and Solo Award 2013 (£25 to enter, one overall winner, long-listed
candidates are invited to exhibit). YAWN. All a bit repetitive isn’t it. Now
these would all be amazing opportunities; but only if you didn’t have to spend
£55 to enter them all. And then not be shortlisted. That’s the rub.
So here are my major points of hatred-
1.
Small admin fees my arse- in general it’s
£15-£25. It can be more. Say you enter 4 to 6 a year and don’t get to exhibit.
That’s a lot of money down the drain you could have used to pay for a website
or online store, to get art materials (shock horror, this stuff is expensive)
or to get professional promotional materials made up.
2.
No guarantee you will get to exhibit- what
if you don’t get to exhibit? I know lots of musicians; do they have to pay just
to be considered to enter a show? No. They have lots of admin costs and the
tools of their trade are expensive, but so are ours. Buying materials, getting
stuff framed, transporting things safely. It all adds up.
3.
If you do get to exhibit, what do you get?
– I entered a show back in 2011 and, in their defence, I only paid once I was
in. It was £100 (owch) not including all my own costs. During the show, out of
20 awesome artists, one person sold one thing. 99% of people at the opening evening
were brought by the artists themselves as support, so what were the organisers
doing? Who had they brought or invited? Where were the press? I’ve no clue, but
I’ll tell you the organisers were. Laughing their socks off all the way to the
bank.
4.
It is not always a way to make connections
or meet people – so, as I’ve said, I’ve done quite a few of these shows. And,
just putting it out there, I’m a pretty nice and friendly sort of person. I’ll chat
to anyone. Yet I can count on one hand the number of people I met, friends
made, clients found at these things. I came away with far more connections from
a free show called Merging Inks I was involved in during summer than from all
these other ‘pay to enter’ shows put together.
5.
It can really damage your faith in your
talent – I’ll be honest, there have been times I’ve been reading another
rejection email from one of these pay to enter shows through blurry, teary eyes.
‘I mustn’t be good enough’, ‘Everyone else’s’ work is so much better than mine’
and ‘Maybe I should just give up’ are some very poisonous thoughts to be
pumping through the mind of a young person just starting out in the art world,
when you haven’t quite yet developed that thick skin and belief in yourself. And
you know what, why do these people get to decide whose work is good or not? If
Tate Modern turns me away saying ‘love, you ain’t got it’ then that’s fine,
they’ve been in the business a looong time. But a dingy council hall in bloody
Hackney? You have to say ‘No ta, I know I’m a bloody good artist/photographer/sculptor,
so sod you.’
6.
You can really damage your finances – I won
a small art competition recently. It was very cool; the design I created is
being printed on a t-shirt and I won some prize money. You know what I paid to
enter that? SWEET-EFF-A. As in, nothing at all. What do you do if at the end of
a year you’ve spent £80 on entrance fees for shows, got into one small one,
spent a further £50 on costs to display your work but unfortunately sold
nothing? That can do some serious damage to your bank balance, never mind your self-esteem.
I implore you to dig around and find the free things to enter or apply to.
TalentHouse and Creative Allies both run regular competitions that are free to
enter if that’s what you fancy, or for straight up shows things like the ‘Spiritof Womanhood’ art exhibition is also free to enter. I would also implore you to
plain out contact places or people you feel may like or need your work. Want to
have an exhibition? Why not see if you can do a deal with a local café to have
a few pieces up. You can offer them a cut of anything sold, giving them an
incentive. Then you may even reach some every day, down to earth people instead
of limited yourself to just those who go into galleries- they may sit there
with their coffee staring at your work and think ‘Hmm, that’s pretty cool….’
Basically my advice ladies and gents is this; don’t do
it. There are tonnes of free ways to promote yourself, to show off your work
and get your portfolio under people’s noses. If you’re not using the internet
to its full and amazing capacity to promote yourself for free, you are missing
a huge trick. Yes, it can be horribly
time consuming, difficult, often frustrating. But that’s life. Keep on going,
and apply and submit for every FREE opportunity you see. Then, if you are
successful and you get into a show, you can budget to pay for the entry fees,
framing, promo materials etc. That is an investment; that makes sense. As
someone starting out, it’s really nice being involved in an exhibition and
thinking ‘Yeah, there’s my art hanging up there, that’s awesome.’ And maybe you’ll
sell something, maybe you’ll meet some cool people, or maybe you’ll just get
battered on free wine and eat all the pretzels; at least it’s an experience.
Don’t let these gits rob you of that experience or the
belief in yourself that you are awesome. ‘Cause you so are.
