By F. Lennox Campello

“Running an art gallery around here was a heroic act!” – John Pancake, former Arts editor of the Washington Post

Art galleries are easily one of the key components of any city’s art scene – if not the crucial component when it comes to exposing the area artists’ works to the public.

This is a complex relationship between an independent business (the gallery) and an individual (the artist). Around the DMV, most fine arts, independent galleries often operate by the skin of their teeth when it comes to finances; John Pancake, who a long time ago was the Arts editor of the Washington Post, once told me “That running an art gallery around here was a heroic act!”

And because most artists are eagerly seeking to show their works at galleries, that introduces various “models” of galleries apart from the standard model of selling your art on consignment and getting a commission if the artwork sells.

What is a “vanity gallery”?

A vanity gallery is an art gallery that “rents” its space to artists in order for the artist to have a show – as well as often ALSO charging a commission if/when the artist sells at the show. Thus, the main driver in having a show at a vanity gallery is not necessarily the quality of the artwork, but the artist’s ability to pay the gallery to host his/her artwork.

New York is crawling with vanity galleries, and a significant number of European galleries are vanity galleries. In the US, however, vanity galleries are often looked down upon by everyone, since they are essentially a “rental” gallery. A knowledgeable art critic or curator knows which galleries in his/her town are vanity galleries, and often ignore them, much like book critics ignore most self-published writers, who use “vanity publishers.”

An interesting fact, at least here in the DMV, is the fact that I have seen “reputable” galleries which sometimes cross the line and become “charge the artist” galleries or vanity galleries once in a while, as the mighty dollar (or lack thereof) calls.

Sometimes, when I was part of Fraser Gallery and we had two gorgeous physical spaces in Georgetown and in Bethesda, we’d get a phone call from an embassy, or from the agent of a Hollywood actor who’s also a “painter” or “photographer,” or from an individual “artist,” and they’d ask us how much would we charge to host a show by their “artist.”

When we’d inform them that we did not rent the gallery for artists to have shows, they’d thank us and hang up. Then a few months later I’d see that “Hollywood artist” or “embassy artist” exhibiting in one of the area’s “reputable” art galleries, and immediately recognize that – at least for that month – that gallery is making ends meet by renting the space to someone.

And it’s not just commercial art spaces. Several years ago, our local press profiled a then local non-profit, which inadvertently admitted charging a multinational corporation a hefty fee to put up an art show at the “reputable” non-profit art spaces.

One can even make the case that even some museums sometimes cross the line and become “vanity museums.”

A few years ago, I was astounded when a culture minister from one of the embassies in DC told me that they had finished a deal with a local museum to host the first ever retrospective of one of that country’s artists for a fee of four million dollars! To him, it was “business as usual,” while to me it was distasteful and dishonest and left a bad taste in my mouth about that museum for the longest time.

The success and exposure that art fairs often give artists has created a new form of “vanity art galleries” that now have refined the vanity process to make a profit off the back of artists at art fairs.

How did the vanity gallery refine the process just for art fairs?

If you submit your work or respond to their aggressive outreach: you will be offered an “artist agency” or “career development” contract where they will charge you substantial upfront fees (often ranging from hundreds to several thousands of dollars) to secure wall space in New York pop-up art fair, or a small slice of a booth at “bottom of the food chain” commercial art fair in New York or during Art Basel Miami Beach week of art fairs (about 25+ of them) in the Greater Miami area in December.

They justify these fees as “strategic career-building services,” marketing packages, and logistics management rather than rent, and I’ve witnessed (at art fairs) where these “galleries” actually rotate the artists every few hours – they are in fact showcasing dozens of artists, rather than focusing and showing 3-4, as most galleries do during a fair.

Traditional galleries either invest their own money to take your work to art fairs because they believe they can sell it and make a 50% commission on those sales (and thus take ALL the financial risks); or they share the brutal costs of a booth at an art fair by inviting selected artists to split the cost of the booth, and get a portion of the booth, and keep 100% of their sales – nearly all cooperative galleries work in this model. This latter model thus gives their artists “access” to the “real” fairs via the gallery and lets the artists keep 100% of sales.

Because the other and “new” art fair vanity gallery profits from your upfront fee – often from dozen or more artists per booth per fair, they bear no financial risk if your work fails to sell AND also make a huge profit even before the art fair starts!

About the Author: F. Lennox Campello’s art news, information, gallery openings, commentary, criticism, happenings, opportunities, and everything associated with the global visual arts scene with a special focus on the Greater Washington, DC area has been a premier source for the art community for over 20 years. Since 2003, his blog has been the 11th highest ranked art blog on the planet with over SIX million visitors.