Dear Tim,

You don't sound snarky at all ... but I suggest you itemize your litany of 
complaints about your expenses to your trucker, the next time you are asked to 
pay for shipping. And no, artists are seldom asked to pay money for being 
included in an art institution's exhibition (although some amateur artist 
associations certainly do ask this), but why should they? What else is an art museum 
for, if not to serve the community? And the viewers and the artists? A museum or 
public gallery is not a commercial showroom! And while occasionally someone 
might buy an artwork from an exhibition in a public gallery (this has only 
happened once to me in my entire career, and the institution asked for a 
percentage!), public galleries are usually nonprofit, are they not? Funded by private 
patronage or government? The fact that this thought would even occur to you 
suggests that you may think the museum does an artist a big favor by including 
their work in an exhibition. This may be the case at times, but it works both 
ways, as you suggest. The printing company may be doing the public gallery a 
favor as well, making extra effort, and working with the public institution in 
"partnership" -- it may even promote it's services by having it's name on the 
back of an institution's brochure or catalog, or using it's relationship with 
the museum or public gallery in its own promotional literature ... but the 
printer gets paid.

Allan

In a message dated 9/21/05 1:23:05 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:


     Without trying to sound snarky, may I ask how many times artists have
     to >pay< to have their work exhibited?  After all, gallery space needs
     to be heated/air conditioned, lit, cleaned, maintained, insured, and
     guarded; these represent real dollars spent by the institution.  Gallery
     space in major centres is often prime real-estate that may carry a
     burden to the institution in rent/taxes.  Galleries often provide
     publicity and promotional materials and valuable exposure for the
     exhibiting artists, and if a gallery should broker sales of works during
     the run of an exhibit, there's considerable costs involved with retail
     staff and overhead of a sales operations as well.  These are all
     concerns and costs for artists operating High Street commercial
     galleries that generally aren't (at least, in my experience) passed on
     to artists exhibiting at public galleries.
     
     Money is always tight for cultural institutions, regardless of their
     size.  I've always thought of exhibits as a partnership between the
     institution and the artist, not as an adversarial relationship of the
     gallery exploiting the artist.
      ------------------------------------------------------------
     Tim McShane, Assistant--Cultural History
     Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery
     1302 Bomford Crescent S.W.
     Medicine Hat, AB   T1A 5E6
     Tel: (403) 502-8587
     [log in to unmask]

=======================
Allan McCollum
63 Greene Street, No. 308
New York, NY 10012
U.S.A.
(212) 431-0212
Email:
[log in to unmask]
Website:
http://home.att.net/~allanmcnyc

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