Getting Your Work Into Shows: A Curator's Perspective (part 1)

By Nancy Rynes

July 2021

Are you an artist who's been baffled about how to get your work juried or invited into art shows? I have had many eye-opening experiences when I became a curator of juried/invitational, rotating art exhibits for healthcare corporations and hospitals, that can help you, the artist, get more acceptance letters than rejection notices.

To give you a little bit of background: I curated art shows that rotated out every few months in which multiple, regional artists were invited to have their work displayed. I selected the artists to participate based on my involvement in the regional art scene. Then my team and I publicized the event, sent out announcements, posted flyers, and organized the opening. At any one time we may manage 40-50 (or more) artists displaying their work throughout a variety of corporate locations, but one main space would be selected for the largest portion of the exhibit.

Like most shows, we created a prospectus that told artists how to present their work for consideration, and also spelled out the details of the exhibit. This lets the artist know what to expect, presents them with the schedule, and answers most of their questions. But I was always astounded at how few artists actually read through the prospectus before bringing their work in on collection day.

My eye-openers may help you as you apply to have your work in juried shows and exhibits:

+ Read the prospectus carefully and abide by any rules and guidelines set out in it. This might seem obvious advice but you’d be surprised at how many folks ignore this. We don't write a prospectus simply for the fun of it - we write it so you know how best to present your work to us, and also so you know what to expect from the curatorial staff and the show. It constantly amazes me, for example, the numbers of artists who, when asked to submit JPEG files of less than 1MB, submit TIFF files of 10 MB or more. Please read through the show or exhibit documentation carefully and follow the guidelines.

+ Be a professional, always. This means in all correspondence, on the phone, and in person. Please avoid pleading or begging in your correspondence, no matter how much you want your work in the show (trust me, I've seen this happen many times). Be on time and follow the instructions in the prospectus or acceptance letter. If you act unprofessionally, you risk coming off as too difficult to deal with. And while a curator may work with you once, if you're difficult to deal with they are less likely to ask for your work a second time or for a special exhibit.

+ Take your work seriously and treat your work as if it's the product of a professional artist. Present it professionally; if it's a painting, have it framed appropriately or have the edges gallery-wrapped and finished. If it's a sculpture, make sure you have an appropriate pedestal for it if one is not provided by the show. Make sure you submit high quality photos of your work as well so that we can see the gorgeous piece of art that it is.

+ It's very important to make sure you’re submitting your best work. Ask yourself this question: Are you proud to display your work in public? Is this your best, most current work? If you don't think it's good enough to be seen in public, then why should we on the curatorial team? (I'll expand on this in a future post.)

+ Consider submitting a body of work of similar style and/or subject matter, rather than one of this and one of that. As curators, we can see your current focus as an artist this way. 

+ If your chosen medium displays best as a framed work, please use similar framing as much as possible on all pieces accepted to the show. Oh, and use the best frames you can afford and err on the side of simpler frames (especially for work on paper). This makes your display look professional and draws attention to your work rather than the frame. I suspect the last thing you want in a show is for viewers to remark on your framing choice and ignore your art.

What are the surest ways to have your work passed over by jurors or curators?

- Ignore the rules and guidelines in the prospectus when submitting your work.

- Take poor-quality photos of your work and submit them for consideration.

- Submit copied work (by "copied work" I mean work directly copied from others where you don't own the copyright). 

- Don't send in all of the information that was requested.

- Miss the deadline, then beg and plead to have your work considered anyway.

Jurors and curators aren’t ogres who are trying to stand between you and a successful art career. We’re usually art lovers and business-people who are trying to put together a coherent show, one that looks beautiful and represents your work to its fullest extent. And as business people with time constraints and often not enough staff, we appreciate working with professionals. It makes everyone's experience much better.

But we’re not superhuman either. Often we’re dealing with many artists at one time, coordinating facilities and other support personnel, organizing the opening reception, sometimes repainting (or even building) walls, creating and printing promo materials, and more. We may be viewing your entries on a computer that has a small hard drive and an even smaller screen. We often have limited financial resources, tight budgets, not enough wall/storage space,  not enough support staff, and definitely never enough time (or all of these).

Those of us who organize art shows are human too, just one person or a small handful of people trying to do the best we can to put on a beautiful display of art. Let's all work together to make these shows as successful as possible.

All content copyright Nancy Rynes, 2023. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes the unauthorized use of copyright material, including but not limited to internet material, a felony.

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