Vanity Art Galleries

Vanity art galleries can be a costly waste of your time and money

In this article, vanity art galleries will be discussed and the possible disadvantages will be explored. Many artists feel that they need to be “in a gallery” to be successful. While working with a gallery can benefit some artists some times, this isn’t always the case.There are many different types of art galleries in existence today. Some are “bricks and mortar”, some are virtual, and some a bit of both. In the traditional gallery model, the gallery promotes your work, sells your art, gives you a percentage of the sale, and keeps a percentage themselves as their commission. It’s a model that works; you have art, they usually have buyers. You handle the creative end, they handle the sales end.In this scenario the gallery makes all the money they are going to make by selling art to collectors.

Sometimes a group of artists will join together and form a non-profit gallery which is usually called a “co-op” gallery. Ownership is set up a bit differently, but otherwise the model works the same way. Virtually all the profit comes from the sale of art to collectors.

There exists another type of gallery, however, of which artists should be aware . These are the so-called “vanity” galleries, and they operate much differently than those discussed above. Some of them are bricks-and-mortar, some are virtual, but they all make their profit by a much different route.

In vanity art galleries you pay to be there. This is the fundamental difference. This is the principle you must understand. You sign a contract (or contracts) to give your money to the gallery in exchange for exhibiting your work. Your money, not the quality of your art, gets you in. Artists aren’t juried in--they buy their way into shows and exhibitions. Often at quite considerable cost!

The business model here is simple. The gallery makes money directly from the artist. The fees charged to artists are often very high. Once you’ve signed the contract, the gallery gets paid and they have no real incentive to sell your work. If you were counting on profits from sales to offset your “investment”, you may be in for a very rude awakening. If you do get any sales, the gallery still gets a very hefty commission.

Professional art critics, reviewers, and other art gallery owners know about these galleries and often don’t think very highly of them. This is something to consider if you plan on using this gallery as some type of reference or adding it to your curriculum vitae. Displaying your work in such venues rarely enhances your career, but it could easily set it back. Be careful of the decisions you make.

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