Essential to curating an art show is being organized and open minded. From the start of this challenging enterprise, open yourself to the ideas of the gallery owner or space manager where you will hold your event.
Finding a venue
These days, the number of venues and art spaces is rising. Depending on your needs, you might approach an established gallery and see about hanging a show in between their scheduled exhibits. This kind of one-night show is a good option for a group of artists coming together to produce a benefit for a local organization.
If you choose to run a show for a week or longer, you can approach galleries such as Balazo/Mission Badlands, ArtSF, the Lab, Southern Exposure, Build, the Shooting Gallery, SomArts and others (for a complete list of Bay Area galleries, visit www.artsandmedia.net/expo//galleries/). These places charge a rental fee, but with careful planning, the money can be raised by featuring bands or performers on opening night and charging a minor admission fee.
When booking a space, find what best fits your budget by calling the manager or owner. They should also be able to provide necessary info about security, gallery hours and whether they have volunteers to assist you.
Depending on the show, the space and the quality of the art, you may need to purchase insurance. If the gallery has no insurance, let your artists know that you are not responsible for damaged, lost or stolen art.
If you haven’t decided how many artists or pieces will be featured, you’ll know after you have picked a venue — but knowing ahead of time will make finding a gallery much easier.
Call for submissions
Before sending out a call for submissions to artists, ask yourself: Will you charge the artists to be in the show? Will there be any additional requirements for art submissions? Will the artists be asked to help pay for flyers? Make sure all the artists have set prices for their art, and are aware that the gallery may ask for a commission.
Artist call-outs can be posted on sites such as the Tentacle List (www.laughingsquid.org/tentacle/), Craigslist.org and Vision + Visuals ArtGroup (VVAGT, groups.yahoo.com/group/VVAGT/). The Gen Art artists’ registry (www.genartsf.org/) is another good resource. If you want to do the show in collaboration with another organization, they can also submit the call-out to their lists.
Publicity
Publicity for the show begins when sending the call for submissions, but you will need to decide how else you will promote the show. Do you want to send out a press release? If so, most newspapers or magazines like to have those at least three weeks in advance. You may need to send it out even before finalizing the artists. Later, you can promote the event with flyers, posters, email and posting on event lists such as the ones hosted by SFArts.org, the Squidlist (www.laughingsquid.org/), SFStation.com, SFGate.com, Craigslist.org and others. This is where (dependable) volunteers come in handy!
Possibly the best thing about the job is the fantastic opportunity to meet the wonderful artists in our community. A good way to get started as a curator is to volunteer at a gallery. Or if you see a call-out for an art show, email the organizer to ask if you can help. Finding a mentor to work with is an excellent way to begin. If that option is not available, just jump in. It will all come together — and you’ll learn from your mistakes.
Kim Carlson is a Bay Area-based artist and photographer whose works have been exhibited both in Japan and locally. She is co-founder of ArtSF (www.artsf.org) and runs a multilingual graphic design company, KC Communications (www.kccommunications.net/).
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