Making an exhibition proposal
The nuts and bolts of sending a proposal to the art space of your dreams...
Hello, hello:
One of the questions artists often reach out to me about is how to pitch an exhibition to a place, whether a nonprofit, a gallery, or a museum. And, really, a cold pitch can feel intimidating, because it puts the burden entirely on you to present your work in a compelling and clear way, connecting it to the audiences that your intended venue cares about.
In many of these newsletters, you can see me grappling with a certain kind of scarcity of resources in the art world (to be clear: I don’t think the art world is scarce in resources, I just think its resources are often not directed to artists). One of the biggest hurdles with writing exhibition proposals is the difficulty of connecting your work with a space that will be exactly the right fit. And, even if you find that space, timing your proposal for when they have an opening in their exhibition calendar, making sure it gets in front of the right readers (and not lost in their inbox), and being clear about how your work fits into their larger mission… Okay, not to paint a daunting picture, but all of it is a challenge.
But leaving aside these fundamental stumbling blocks for a moment, what are the nuts and bolts of actually preparing an exhibition proposal? Below, I’ve developed a checklist of sorts, for how you might get started. And, as I say often, even if your project doesn’t find the right venue right away, the exercise of developing a proposal should also help you clarify what your work is about and how it offers spaces of reflection for its viewers. And this is never a bad thing to think through.
The first thing your reader will see, most likely, is the email introducing your exhibition proposal, so I encourage you to keep it short, friendly, not effusive in its enthusiastic gratitude, and specific. You want this email to tell its recipient why you think their space is a good fit for your work and provide a clear follow-up plan for how you will be in touch. So you might write something like this:
Dear Greta Garbo,
Please find an exhibition proposal for my Lunar Journals project attached to this email. The mixed-media and video installation work, developed between 2017 and 2021, looks at the interplay between the moon and its admirers, through an ongoing series of journal meditations, drawings, and collages inspired by nightly observation. I am proposing it to your art space specifically because it is in dialogue with the kinds of work you currently show, including the Mars Constellation exhibition by artist Fredi Washington that you opened last year. Thank you for your kind consideration. I’ll reach out via email in a few weeks to follow up, or you can contact me directly at 123-4567.
Sincerely,
Hermione Lee(And then, dear friends, make sure you follow up!)
Attached to that email, you’ll want to put a simply formatted PDF which includes the following:
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