Organising an Art Exhibition
Turning an initial artistic concept into a real-life exhibition can be daunting. Here are our top tips to help you organise a successful exhibition. Remember, this guide provides general advice only.
Jump to: Big Picture Thinking - Find a Gallery - Get to Know Your Gallery - Get Curating - Plan Your Installation - Final Touches - Celebrate - Additional Resources
Big Picture Thinking
Creative concept
Great exhibitions are built around clear ideas and themes. When developing your idea for an exhibition, think about what is linking your art together. Are there concepts, questions or artistic styles that your exhibition is exploring?
Build your team
Decide who you want to work with and how you want to work together. Will this be a group or solo show? If it is a group show, will there be one person curating or will you decide what is going where collectively? Will everyone have the same amount of space or will it vary based on people’s work?
Get clear on roles and responsibilities for other organisational tasks too, such as marketing, installation and planning your opening event.
Set a budget
There can be lots of incidental costs associated with organising an exhibition. These might include a gallery hire fee, framing artworks for display, printing promotional flyers and catering the opening event. It can be helpful to set a budget during the planning phase of your exhibition so you are clear about how much you plan to spend, and in what areas. Having a clear budget will be important if you are applying for funding to support your exhibition.
Find a Gallery
Galleries support artists and artists support galleries. Try to regularly attend different gallery openings and events to get a feel for the people and spaces in your local area.
Local Suggestions
The City of Ryde holds annual expressions of interest for our Community Exhibition Program, helping members of our local community to exhibit the art in various Council-owned spaces.
Other arts spaces nearby include:
If you’re looking further afield, the National Association of Visual Artists (NAVA) also maintains a list of artist-run galleries (often called ‘ARIs’) around Australia. See the list.
Get to Know Your Gallery
Once you have locked in a gallery, it’s time to get to know that space. If possible, it’s best to try to visit the gallery space at least once in person before you go to install your exhibition.
Understand your Support
Different galleries will provide you with different levels of support for things like marketing, installation and supervision of your exhibition. Make sure you ask early about how much and what kind of support they will be providing you with.
Floorplans and Measurements
Most galleries will be able to provide you with a floorplan with measurements. This will help you understand how much room you have to use, and can help you work out what will go where. You can also ask if the gallery has any plinths or other display devises you can use, and what the dimensions are. If you need power for your artwork, make sure you check power points locations.
Lighting
Find out about lighting in your gallery. Where are the lights, and can you move them to suit your show? How much natural light is there? Are there any bright or dark spots in the gallery you want to capitalise on or avoid?
Gallery Constraints
Find out if the gallery space has any constraints that might impact the kind of art you can show and how you can show it. This could include things like requiring work to be hung on a track system or limiting how heavy artworks can be.
Install Inspiration
Check out photographs of past exhibitions held in that gallery to see how others have installed their art and used the space.
Get Curating!
Now you know about your gallery space, and what you want your exhibition to be about, it’s time to develop a more detailed plan.
Diagrams
It is useful to create a diagram of how you want your artwork to be displayed. Make sure you accurately represent the size of your artwork and the gallery display areas so you know it will all fit. Making a diagram digitally makes it easy to move images of artworks around so you can see how they work together and easily try out different combinations.
Going in with a clear plan for how you want your exhibition to look will make your installation smoother and more efficient. You can always tweak things when you’re in the space but it’s great to have a clear plan.
Plan Your Installation
Transporting your art
Once you know what art you want to show and where you want it to go, you need to work out how to get it there. What mode of transport are you going to use to get your art to the gallery? Where is the best point to drop off and pick up?
Remember to protect your artwork when you move it. Consider using bubble wrap or tissue paper to avoid artworks getting damaged as you move them around. If you are posting or freighting work, make sure you use a sturdy box to transport.
Preparing your tool kit
Work out if you need to bring along any special equipment to help you with your installation. Common items you might need include a drill, screws and plugs, a hammer, pins, a spirit level, a tape measure and white gloves (for handling the art). Talk to the gallery to ask them what they can provide.
Remember to check with the gallery and refer to your exhibition agreement to make sure you follow any guidelines or restrictions about how works can be installed.
Spread the Word
You’ll need some marketing material to promote your exhibition: a few great images, a short description of the show and artists involved, key information on dates, times and locations, and contact details if people want to get in touch. If you’re feeling ambitious, you could prepare a press release about your exhibition to send out to local community newspapers, radio stations, websites and social media groups.
Ask the gallery if they can help you promote your exhibition through their contact lists and communication channels. However, remember that galleries often need marketing material quite far in advance.
Final Touches
Room sheet
A room sheet provides information about an exhibition including details of individual artworks. Common artwork details included on the room sheet are artist name, artwork name, materials, dimensions, year of production and price. Room sheets are normally printed and left in the gallery space during the exhibition.
Documentation
Make sure you take lots of photographs of your exhibition when it is installed. Experiment with different lighting to make sure you get clear and professional looking images. It is best to get images of your exhibition when there is no one in the room. However, this is also a great chance to take an artist portrait in front of your work!
Celebrate!
Your exhibition is up and now it is time to share it with friends, family and the local arts community. Consider holding an opening event to formally launch your show. At an opening, people generally provide light refreshments and have some brief speeches to give context on the exhibition and the artists involved.
If holding an opening, you might like to recruit some friends or family assist you with set up, clearing glasses, serving food and processing sales. Don’t allocate any jobs to yourself or other artists in the show as you want to be free to move around the room and network.
Additional Resources
Museums & Galleries of NSW
Museums & Galleries of NSW has published a number of practical guides. In addition to exhibitions tips, check out their advice on how to look after (conserve) your art.
NAVA
The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) is the national peak body for the Australian visual and media arts, craft and design sector.