A recent gallery tour revealed a few flaws in how some ‘big corporate companies’ can really mess up an already fragile artist ego with the hype for free exposure.
Case in hand; we joined a gallery tour via invitation complete with fine print and well intentioned guarantees that came with a brand name and credible background from a larger corp. We were grateful for the ‘high profile’ name brand coverage of our Art touring for an entire month, wow. We delivered and waited for the first show.
The street fair gallery was awkward, and really wasn’t setup until noon. The fair was about ‘recycling’ and the gallery booth was completely recycled materials with our art hanging upon metal sheets on paper rolls. Without revealing the actual brand name or naming names, see the photo.
This was a start, we were patient and waited for the usual coverage, news releases or even an article…what we got was a link to their site with no reference to any of the artist’s or reps for the artists. A blogging site where we only talked to each other, the general public was not aware of us. The show became anonymous, a walk-through outside gallery booth without the postcards or usual advertising to draw the crowds or the sales.
Frankly, for such a big news corp. covered in classifieds and worldwide newspaper savvy, they simply dropped the ball in favor of a new brand printed zine in a recycled booth (supposed to appeal to a younger generation), and never once published the artists names or photos to the general public with larger newspaper subscribers.
We eventually had to wait while the tour went from street fair to street fair including cancelled shows and finally to a fashion show side booth; where we finally said, enough! Still anonymous, we grabbed our free show artwork and left. The art had minor damage, but we now understood who we were dealing with and just left it at that. The fine print will obviously disavow our claims, so we make none…for now. We wait until they find some ‘ego’ problem with us pulling out one day early since we had a REAL gallery show to deliver our Art, and to blog about our experience. Meanwhile we wait.
Optimistically, they will just forget us as we will forget them and chock it up to a bad experience and ‘never again’ sign a fine print contract or realize that nothing good is ever FREE especially from big corporations thinking only for their own product!
“Artist beware Trojan Horses bearing FREE exposure Gifts!”
