What You Need To Know Before Opening An Art Gallery
Josh Glover
Content Strategist at Sharpsmart UK | Creating informative and thought-provoking content – working towards a safer and more sustainable healthcare system.
Starting a new business is a difficult task that comes with uncertainty, risk, and hard work; and art galleries are no exception to this rule.?
It needs to be viewed as more than a passion project, becoming established in the art market can be a struggle and there’s more to opening a gallery than whitewashing walls and hanging pictures; there are things you need to know before opening an art gallery.
If you’re an art aficionado planning on getting started with your art business, or currently running your newly opened gallery, this article can help you align your passion with your business and achieve your goals.
Before any of that, though, you need to determine why you want to.
Why Do You Want To Open An Art Gallery?
Before taking any of the steps associated with opening an art gallery you need to know exactly why you want to.
Knowing why you want to open an art gallery and having some solid reasoning underpinning your decision, will enable you to stay motivated and keep pushing towards success.
As you can imagine, opening a gallery comes with risks and requires a lot of effort and hard work so it’s important that your reason for opening a gallery is strong enough to keep you going.
Once you’ve determined your reason for taking a leap into the art world, keep it close to your heart and at the forefront of your mind so you can keep referring back to it.
What You Need To Know Before Opening An Art Gallery?
There’s enough content to write a book on the subject of what you need to know before opening a gallery, but for brevity, here are seven key areas that you need a strong understanding of:
The Art Market
Knowledge and understanding of what the art market is and how it operates are vital if you want to stake your claim in the art world.?
As a gallery owner or manager, you’ll never stop learning. It’s an ongoing process one of the most important activities you’ll engage in, and with every new artwork or artist you represent, you’ll have a whole new area to learn about.
You’ll need to familiarise yourself with the trends and fluctuations of the art market and work to develop a keen eye for scouting promising emerging artists and the artworks that have the highest potential for appreciation.?
Seeing a gallerist demonstrate their knowledge and expertise of the pieces they have on display, instils a strong sense of confidence and comfort in a buyer.
As well as the art market at large, you’ll also need to spend time researching the local market in the area you intend to open your gallery, and the online market too.
If your art gallery is going to be serving a niche area of the art market (which is recommended); you’ll first need to understand enough about the market to know which niche to serve, and also have enough knowledge in that niche area to be considered an expert.
The ability to find and represent talented emerging artists and help their careers flourish and become established is a huge asset to a gallery, resulting in a reputation that commands respect in the art world.?
In order to gain that reputation, however, understanding the art market is essential.
The Target Audience
It’s imperative to identify, reach, and serve your target audience; gearing all of your marketing efforts and energy towards them.
With a good understanding of the art market, identifying your target audience will be a lot easier; this is a good time to conduct some research into your competition too.
Whilst your niche will determine a lot about who your target audience is, your broader prospective customer base will include:
Where does your target audience spend their time? Where do they go for news and information? How does your gallery solve the problems they’re facing? What demographics do they fall into? What behaviours do they exhibit?
Questions like these can help you gradually narrow and define your audience, giving you the ability to serve them in a manner so specific to them that they’ll begin to put their trust in your gallery; giving you the opportunity to nurture them towards becoming loyal customers.
Research and analysis are key, and this is an area that needs a decent amount of time and energy put into it.
Once you’ve identified your target audience, you can focus your marketing and business efforts on them in earnest as they’ll be the group most likely to buy from you, and if done properly, come back to buy again.
The Gallery Space
It’s important to get your gallery space right from the start, once you’re inside that brick and mortar, you’re there for a while.
Your space needs to fit the bill both inside and out as the location and design of your space can have a positive or negative impact on what you’re aiming to achieve.
The interior design of your gallery should be unique but make sense within the niche that you’ve chosen to serve.
Art galleries that stand out tend to do better than those that come onto the scene, attempt to copy and paste what the big name galleries are doing and later disappear, fading into obscurity.
Some of the non-negotiable aspects of what the inside of your gallery should include are; ample space, high ceilings, and good lighting.
It helps to have separate spaces within the space too; another floor, private areas that can be used for storage, and an office for instance.
The main thing is ensuring there’s enough space to display your art collections, hold exhibitions and host events.?
The art on display will always be the main feature of an art gallery but equally, a gallery should offer an experience for visitors, and by being unique with the provided experience, you increase your chances of people spreading the word both online and offline, resulting in more visitors and as a result, customers.?
The location of your gallery can be the thing that makes or breaks your business and as a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to ensure it’s easy to find, easy to access and has enough space.
One of the difficulties when it comes to location can be finding a cost-effective solution that isn’t hidden away or in the middle of nowhere.?
A location with an established creative community can be a huge boost for your business and whilst conducting your local market research, this is something well worth investigating.
Your visitors having somewhere to park either on site or nearby will be a huge plus too.?
The Business Plan
You’ll need a clear business plan in place long before you even open the doors; in fact, if you’re looking to secure funding for your business then you’ll definitely need a detailed business plan.
Your business plan will cover in detail how your gallery will operate, how you intend to conduct business, and ultimately, how your gallery is going to generate an income and grow.
If you intend to earn a commission on the sale of artworks, you need to establish what percentage you’ll be taking; you also need to determine if your gallery will operate as a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation, as well as how your company structure will work.?
It’s worth including any other ways you plan to generate an income through your gallery beyond selling artworks.?
Some ideas for other sources of art gallery income are:
Charging your visitors to enter your gallery (outside of exhibitions and events) is something that should be avoided at all costs, this will put off potential visitors and earn you the reputation of a penny-pinching pariah.
You need to do your utmost to get potential customers into the building, it’s counterproductive to put an obstacle at the front door.
The Connections And Network
Networking takes more than familiarity with the art market and the local market, you need to fully immerse yourself and become an active participant.?
Visiting other art galleries in the surrounding area is an effective way to get to know the competition and to get to know those operating in the same field as you.?
Meeting with artists and building relationships is essential for a gallery as it will be their work that generates your income. As you begin to earn a reputation for helping emerging artists become established in their careers, it will be a little easier to find artists to represent.
In the beginning, you’re going to have to put in the extra leg work to get artists on board with your vision and then work even harder to help them achieve the status that will bring you both the rewards.
Being a gallerist isn’t about taking a cold, commercial approach to selling a product at a profit; every aspect of this business model hinges on building and maintaining relationships.
The art market is very much still a face-to-face industry and networking by attending in-person events and being an active member of the community is vital for increasing your connections.
It’s good to take the initiative for this too and if you can’t find any events that seem relevant or worthwhile, why not host one yourself and get to know those in the local art community?
The Artists And Artworks
Finding the right art for your gallery will be driven by the niche you’ve chosen and your target audience; without artworks to display and artists to represent you can’t have a gallery.
Depending on your target audience, you may choose to stock artworks aiming at different budgets; a blend of affordable and prestigious pieces. Fine art prints work as a practical solution for catering to customers with a more restricted budget.
But if you want to attract the more serious art collectors and investors you’ll need a decent selection of high-end artworks.
As a gallerist you have to approach this with a unique point of view; viewing artists and artworks from a business perspective and the potential for future profits, but also with a curatorial vision of how the artworks will work in your space.?
As a new gallery, it can be difficult to get an established artist on board but it’s not impossible; if you’ve got half decent people skills and good business acumen you can work on getting at least one established artist under your brand.
When purchasing the work of an established or blue-chip artist it’s absolutely necessary to verify the piece is authentic. Only buy from reputable dealers and always establish an artwork's authenticity.?
An often overlooked area of gallery ownership for new gallerists that needs to be considered from the beginning is the care and maintenance of the artworks on display and in storage.
Generally speaking, the older the artwork and the more renowned the artist behind it; the higher the level of care, maintenance and expertise it will require.
Every member of staff including you as the gallerist needs to know as much as possible about the artworks you have on display; a lack of knowledge of your own inventory will damage your gallery’s reputation.?
Online or offline, anyone that speaks to your target audience on the gallery’s behalf must know what they’re talking about.
By your gallery clearly and regularly demonstrating its expertise (without being condescending),? and being able to explain the meaning and relevance of each artwork; it will become established as a brand that buyers can trust.?
The Marketing Strategy?
Your art gallery needs an online presence and having a website is no longer a suggestion, it’s a requirement.?
To get the most out of your online presence and your website, you’ll also need a solid marketing strategy. A marketing strategy will enable you to locate and reach your target audience as well as help them find you.
Your marketing efforts should generate excitement around your gallery and the artists you represent; motivating your audience to become visitors that can be nurtured and converted into loyal customers.
A strategic approach to your marketing is essential because as you well know, an art gallery isn’t just a space for displaying art; it’s a business, and as a business, it needs to generate an income and turn a profit; to do that, it needs to be marketed properly.
As well as bringing in more sales, your marketing efforts should help to establish your brand as an industry leader, an expert with the ability to establish an artist’s reputation and provide artworks with good potential for rising in value.
What Do You Need To Do Before Opening An Art Gallery?
Working through this list of steps and using them in conjunction with each other will give you the chance to make the most of your opportunity to become a renowned gallerist with an art gallery that stands out.
As mentioned at the outset, there’s enough content on this subject to write a book, maybe even a series of books; each of the steps above is brief but covers the basic outline of the idea. Each step can and should be researched in more detail.
Starting a business in the art industry comes with a lot of research and by getting stuck in and building a solid foundation of knowledge and insight, you’ll be able to plan ahead and be prepared.
Your understanding of the art market will help you get the most out of your gallery space both online and off; your well-crafted marketing strategy will enable you to reach your target audience whilst expanding your network of valuable connections and your collection of artworks.
By putting it all together and working strategically, your art gallery can achieve the goals you set out in your business plan.
Is Your Art Business In Need Of SEO Content Writing?
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If you’re looking to establish the online presence of your art gallery and increase traffic to both your physical and online spaces, don’t hesitate to get in touch for a free website review and consultation.
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1 年I am in this field regarding Art but I didn't have an online art gallery so its best to start something.