Strategizing solo shows: veteran gallery directors share their insights

Art Business News, Dec, 2004 by Amy Leibrock

To the uninitiated, running an art gallery sound easy. You simply find a few artists, rent a space, paint the walls white and showcase one artist each month, right?

Anyone who has been in the business for even a few months knows better. Deciding which artists to feature and how to do it can be a delicate dance, which requires months of preparation. And when a show features a single artist, the pressure is even greater.

Most galleries, no matter how many artists they represent, choose to put on regular shows that highlight a single artist for one of two reasons: either to sell more work by their most popular artists or to give undivided exposure to emerging artists. Kathrine Erikson, gallery director of Manitou Galleries in Santa Fe, NM, bases 80 percent of her show schedule on the gallery's established artists. Because of all the expense and planning that goes into each show, these artists must be reliable, have a good collector base and be able to produce enough good work to fill the walls.

"They've proven themselves to be worthy of a big show," Erikson says. "If they're not prolific enough, they can't put enough work together to do a show."

For Denise Berthiaume of LeMieux Gallery in New Orleans, consistency is what she looks for when considering an artist for a solo show. "They have to have quality, well-crafted, imaginative work," she says. "I literally have a visceral reaction to good work. It makes me salivate--that's my criteria."

Berthiaume, who has maintained 15- and 20-year relationships with some of her artists, also likes to work with artists who can evolve with the gallery, keeping the work fresh for both her and her collectors.

For many artists, getting featured in a solo show is as difficult as getting that first job out of college.

"It's kind of a 'Catch 22.' If you don't sell paintings, you can't have a show; but some people don't sell paintings, if they don't have a show," says Ralph Johnson of Gross McLeaf Gallery in Philadelphia, which features 15 one-person shows per year.

Luckily, many gallery owners like Johnson are willing to take a chance on artists with shorter track records.

"We have to take that leap at some point and say this person's good enough for us to get behind with a one-person show," says Johnson.

Sometimes this approach works and sometimes it doesn't. Johnson says that in order to take those chances, you have to be able to afford to have a show that doesn't sell well once in a while. When he's experimenting with newer artists, Johnson will show them during a slower time of the year when sales expectations aren't as high.

"It doesn't help the artist that much, but it gives them the track record of having had a show," says Johnson.

Manitou Galleries, which represents 37 contemporary Southwestern artists reserves 20 percent of its shows to test the waters for newer artists.

"Often there are artists who we have a good feeling about, and even though they haven't established a history yet, you take a chance on someone you believe in," says Erikson. "We want to launch them and give them a good start."

She cautions that it takes the public a while to become comfortable with a new artist. That's why she likes to give an artist a year after a show before making any serious judgments about his or her work. A show is just one part of the promotion that goes on during that year; she also tries to get editorial coverage for the artist and has many discussions about the work.

Size Matters

Both Manitou Galleries and Gross McLeaf Gallery have large buildings with enough space to feature one or two solo shows along with a selection from their stable of artists. But for a smaller gallery with space constraints, the decision to stage a solo show often means that the artist's work will be the only art in the gallery for weeks. If a patron walks in and doesn't like that particular artist, he may never return.

For this reason, Shawn Vinson, owner of Vinson Gallery in Atlanta, doesn't do as many solo shows as he used to. His gallery, which is in a restaurant district, gets a lot of walk-in traffic, so he doesn't want to turn off first-time visitors.

"I always try to keep a variety to help me appeal to a wider audience," says Vinson, who still puts on at least one carefully chosen, one-person show a year. "I use the group shows to get the feedback and see who we're doing well with. And the ones who rise above the pack, get a solo show."

Mary Bell of Mary Bell Galleries in Chicago also has a small space with very little room for inventory. So if a solo show doesn't sell well, storage can be a problem. As a result, Bell is very selective about the images she chooses to feature in a show--she rarely hangs more than 12 pieces.

"I'm always conscious of how much art I'm bringing in the gallery," she says. "It can just get to be too much. I try to basically hone it down to the ones that I think will sell."

Bell also maximizes her space by showcasing the higher end of an artist's work. She rotates between group shows and one- or two-person shows. And while she has a handful of artists who can carry a solo show, she finds it often relieves some of the pressure on an artist to have a two-person show instead.