John, I've seen various approaches to this in practice. I think much may depend on whether one is part of a public, private, or educational institution. I gravitated to the university gallery field, in part, because I believe educational institutions are well situated to present and promote just those sorts of progressive works that may not be possible in commercial venues. How does one put a pricetag on community-based projects for instance? At any university I've worked at, price lists for contemporary art exhibitions were either kept hidden until someone requested them or not revealed at all by gallery staff. If there was an interest in purchasing something, I would simply provide that information to the artist to pursue. If a dealer was the lender, then the information would go to them. Once a university gallery or museum begins to act as dealers themselves and take commissions as well (as some do), I worry about the impact such activities will have on future programming. When it is student work that is involved, there are some further points to consider. Essentially art degree programs wish to professionalize emerging artists as best they can, and I suppose a point could be made that student exhibitions should operate like the real world. But when I've seen this happen at some institutions- red and green dots going up next to works on opening night of a graduate thesis exhibition, for instance- I felt very uneasy about the message it was sending to the student and the public in such a context. I wonder how the critiques (an integral part of the MFA thesis defense) went the following day and how the sales or lack thereof effected the dialogue. Joe Houston Joe Houston, Director Indiana State University Art Gallery Center for Performing and Fine Arts 102 Terre Haute, IN 47809 Tel: 812.237.3787 Fax: 812.237.4369 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ museum-l.html. You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).