When it is an art gallery. I’ve had plenty of time this week to observe the behaviour of visitors to galleries, and for some reason as I drove home from the supermarket this morning an idea came into my head. We artists constantly regret the unwillingness of the public to buy our work. Perhaps a contributory factor here is that the people who go into galleries don’t actually expect to be able to buy what they see. “Galleries” are where you go to be entertained. If you expect to buy something you go into a shop. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t go into the National Gallery (or even Bradford’s civic Cartwright Hall) and come out with an “old master”.
There is a very successful private gallery near where I live* and it has only just struck me that when you look at it from the outside it looks just like a shop …. but it is an art shop. The last thing you would do is to confuse the Manor House in Ilkley (where I am currently showing work) with a shop. It is obviously an “ancient monument” (actually a very old house dating back to the 14th. century.) Just as visitors are expected to admire the incredible old roof timbers, so by extension it might appear that they are simply expected to admire the art.
I asked the question a couple of days ago, why people behave as they do in galleries. It now strikes me that they are acting as you might expect them to do when they are “sight-seeing” in any other context. What is the difference, one might ask, between admiring Ilkley’s famous Cow and Calf rocks, and looking at my pictures?
Across the street from the Manor House a new gallery has opening, selling the work of its proprietor. It is situated in an ordinary shop, in a row of shops, such as you might enter anywhere in order to buy something. It will be interesting to see how well she fares. Perhaps we artists should spend a little time reflecting on how we present ourselves and our work so that it appears to be legitimately available for purchase by the public.
*The Bingley Gallery