Getting Into Shows
"How do I get a show?" I am often asked. And I usually respond to the question with a question of my own: "Why do you want to show?" Quite a few people are completely caught off-guard by my question—they usually haven't thought about why they want to be in a gallery. To them, it is just what one does. Others site the desire "to become better known" or "to earn money." And some say, "Because I want to be reviewed."
In many of these conversations I often come to realize that the artist with whom I am speaking does not understand the roles of three key exhibition gatekeepers: the curator, the jury and the (private or "commercial") gallery owner. Although for some readers the roles of these people are very clear, here is a basic overview for those for whom clarification is valuable.
Bear in mind that I have limited space here, so I will generalize. And one generalization is this: to get reviewed, approach not-for-profit galleries and curators for a show and to get important reviews, follow the same procedure in a major urban centre. To makes sales, approach commercial galleries and their owners. To have fun and to network with peers, enter a juried competition.
Curators are stewards of collections. They are the primary caretakers of the objects in the collections of archives, libraries, galleries, museums, individual and corporate collections, and many botanical gardens. The curator's role may include some or all of these tasks: collecting objects; making provision for the effective preservation, conservation, interpretation, documentation, research and display of the collection; and to make them accessible to the public. Most artists and the general public become aware of curators in their capacity of organizer of exhibitions in "public" galleries; a curator (or director who acts as chief curator) runs most public galleries. (Public galleries are those run by government or operated as not-for-profit societies. The exhibitions of these galleries tend to focus on revelation or education.)Two relatively new phenomena in the visual art world are: first, the emergence of academic programs and degrees in contemporary art and curatorial practice; and second, the emergence of (at least in urban centres) the "independent" curator—that is, a curator unaffiliated with a specific institution.
All this information on the curatorial role is a "dictionary definition." When I am doing public speaking about the visual arts, I like to say that curators are tellers of stories, telling their stories in both images (the artifacts themselves) and interpretive or expository words. The curators' exhibitions or "stories" are revelatory; by seeing a large number of pieces by one artist, or by viewing several artists and images in one exhibition, viewers find deeper meanings through the relationships between the images and/or the artists and discover the curator's story. Exhibition catalogues, gallery docents and the statements by the artists help us to understand or appreciate what exhibition visitors see—they help us know the story.
As stewards of our heritage, curators operating in public galleries have a responsibility to tell the "most important" stories of, or for, their constituencies: local taxpayers (the general public), the artists of their community and their members/sponsors/donors. They must show us the best of our local, provincial and national artists—those artists who excel at saying who we are and those who make a significant contribution to contemporary art practice—and, when possible, they should show us the work of very significant artists from outside our communities. The role of the curator in a public institution, or the institution's curatorial objective, is often defined in the institution's mandate.
Curators also function significantly in the lives of Canadian visual artists because of the role they often play in the peer jurying process of the Canada Council and other funding agencies. Their regional knowledge of artists helps coordinate public investment in specific artists and/or art practices. Artists who feature often in the exhibitions of public institutions are the artists who become our national artists.
Visual art critics (to some extent) and curators play a vital regional role. If you want to see your work reviewed by the press, if you want to seriously advance your career as a professional artist, you must aim for a "career" in public institutions, and the gatekeepers for these institutions are our curators. Artists with talent, integrity and ambition should aim to have their work seen by every curator possible. But if you paint to satisfy a need or passion, and/or if you are interested in deriving income from the sale of your art, you should focus on exhibition spaces that are not curated. Instead, you should be looking to juried exhibitions, local art fairs, artist collective initiatives, community galleries and/or private galleries for exhibitions.
In a juried exhibition, the jury replaces the curator and selects work for an exhibition that is usually drawn from submissions to a "call for entry (CFE)." (Curators invite artists to fit their theses; there are not calls for entry to curated shows.) The story of a juried exhibition—the exhibition's objective or purpose—is usually defined in the CFE (sometimes called a "call for submissions" or other such phrase). A "blind" juried show attempts to minimize jury prejudice by not allowing the jurists to know the name of the artists whose work they are evaluating or to read any artists' statements. In theory, they judge each piece by its merits alone. Artists with strong personal styles, however, are often recognizable to blind jurists; the process is not infallible.
Owners of commercial galleries are, for me, best understood as customer focused. Without customers, they go out of business: their objective is sales. Yes, they serve their artists, and many do so very well, but they serve artists who are "right" for their customers. Their customers are their most valuable assets. They serve their artists by hosting shows once a year or once every couple of years; they want to serve their customers many, many times a year. Gallery owners are not looking for talent per se; rather, they seek talent compatible to the taste of their inventory of buyers.
Understanding the objectives or purpose of commercial and not-for-profit galleries, and understanding what curators do and how juries work, helps those of you who want to further your career focus your energy on appropriate venues and people.
ctyrell@shaw.ca
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