How to organize your own art exhibition
‘Soft words I tell myself’ is now online available to collect here.
I organized my own art exhibition! In this two part video series I’m showing you how I organized my own show, mostly the practical side of it all, but also a bit of the mental energy it took.
How to organize your own art exhibition?
If you’re looking for tips on how to organize your own, maybe these video help. I go into the different steps in the videos, but these are the main points:
Create the art! Make it a real collection and conceptualize what you want to show. Creating a show mock-up with photos of the location really helps to make it real.
Create a title for your art exhibition fitting to that concept.
Write a short text explaining what your art exhibition is about and use it everywhere for communication.
Think about funding: how are you funding your own art exhibition? You might pay for it all yourself, but what are the other possibilities? Is there a local art grant you could apply for? Is there a sponsor you could find for the opening drinks? Are you expecting to sell a lot of originals or is it smart to also include a more affordable print?
If you want to sell your work to collectors: Frame all your works - a bare painting looks different than a framed one. It can really show how a painting will look in someone’s home. If you want a cohesive look in the show, choose the same frames for the same type of work. Also: take your time because framing takes quite a bit of work.
Create an exhibition poster you can share offline and online. Include the title, opening date, your artist name and use an artwork you want to represent the entire exhibition. I made different dimensions to share on instagram feed and stories but also a nice size to print as a poster.
Time to hang your art! The mock-up really helps here, but if it doesn’t look good you can still change it up. Take your time, you only have one shot at a first impression. Bringing a second pair of eyes to see also helps. Use stickers or cards to hang next to the paintings with titles and a link/QR to your website so a collector can find your work.
Invite all your friends and art connections for the opening day. Bonus tip: send your invitation to local press. If you have a newsletter or e-mail list make sure to send your invitation there on time too.
If you want to sell your art at your art exhibition, print out an overview of all the works with their dimensions and sizes and make sure there are a few copies at your opening. If someone is interested in your work this is an extra incentive for them to see the works are available for sale. It might make sense to you, but if you’re not used to visiting art exhibitions not everyone knows the works are for sale.
Write an opening speech for your exhibtion: you’re organizing your exhibition by yourself, so you’re the one who opens your art exhibition! It can be a short version of your written text, just make it authentic and sincere. This is really your chance to shine light on what your visitors might not have noticed right away.
After your opening, photograph your exhibition for your own archive but also to post online, to your social media and on your website. The times I haven’t photographed an exhibition well I always regretted it. If you don’t know how to photograph well get someone else to make photos.
Promote, promote, promote! Use all the photos and videos you have made of the exhibition so far and share the original works you’ve been showing at your exhibition. Time to make everyone that follows your work interested in visiting. I personally like to share a little piece each day so the momentum of the show keeps on for a few weeks/months.
If you had works for sale, this is also the time to post them online and available to collect. I like making works available at the show first and a few weeks later make them available online so I have time to really organize all available works and also to give more incentive to visit the actual show.
End of the show: the finnisage! A closing event, a last chance to visit your show. Depending on the situation you could also use this day to organize something a little different: maybe you’d like to organize an artist talk? Or organize an open studio? Anything that adds to the original opening of your exhibit.
These are most of the steps I took to organize my own art exhibition. It’s a lot of work but also a great learning experience to see everything that goes into organizing an event like that. The first time is always the hardest. :-)