Brisbane Group Exhibtion

[Maris]

Good luck with the exhibition. It's not like print night at the camera club but a potentially prestigious event that can put your names on the map. Here's a checklist I've used to mount exhibitions for myself and other people:

Get the right gallery...accessible location, parking nearby, enough wall-space, proper lighting, suitable hanging system (rails, nails, etc, ?), adequate opening hours including nights and weekends, off hours access for hanging and demounting the show.

Sign the right gallery contract months in advance...gallery for hire?, gallery commission on sales?, what services are provided?, money up front? Leave nothing to chance.

Write and design a cogent manifesto or unifying theme that says why you are putting up pictures, why it is important, why visitors to the show will feel rewarded, etc

Write and design individual artist biographies and statements and prepare them in the form of wall plaques to go with the big wall plaque bearing the manifesto.

Write and design a catalogue (illustrated?) and pricelist for the exhibition. Everyone who walks through the show should have one!

Organise the invitation list (your friends plus the gallery's friends) for people who should attend the exhibition.
Design and print (several hundred?) invitation cards for mailing out about 3 weeks before opening night. Follow up with reminder emails, facebook, twitter, ...etc about a week before opening night.

Write, design, and promulgate press and media releases well in advance...6 months for magazines and other periodicals, 2 weeks for newspapers, 1~2 weeks for radio and television stations. Contact media personalities that may be interested or who are otherwise hurting for news. Give interviews. Hang a banner on the gallery street front.

Write an advance review or critique of the exhibition that can be run just after opening night by a journalist facing a copy deadline.

Invite a famous personality (director of the QAG for example) to open the exhibition.

Organise, design, and fund catering for the opening night crowd....from cheese, wine, and crackers to something more upmarket. Check licencing restrictions if applicable.

Have all works to be exhibited fully finished, titled, signed, immaculately framed and ready for hanging. All wall cards have to be ready too.

Keep red dot "sold" stickers to hand. Crowd psychology needs a sales icebreaker. Consider hanging pre-sold work just to get a red dot on the wall.

When the show ends take everything away quickly.

With all the knowledge gained plan the next show.......or vow never to do it again.

Again, good luck!

[alexn]

thanks for that Maris. a wealth of good ideas for sure.

i will do up a checklist incorporating all of that and get to work.. upside for me is that i already have the work drum scanned, printed, mounted and framed... that's a process and a half in itself.

[RoganJosh]

Cheers Maris for the checklist t'was very kind of you - if you dont mind me asking.. have you exhibited in Brisbane before? If so which gallery and how was it?

Hey Alexn where did you get your work scanned and printed? Right now I use Brisbane Digital Imaging for drum scanning and Prolab for fujiflexing until i can afford my own peizo b&w setup.

Do you do your own mounting/framing? I was gonna window mount but i dont know the best archival way to attach the print without using dry mounting.

[alexn]

a mate of mine in Sydney has a flextight scanner. he does all my scans. i have had flexing done at prolab and rgbdigital. both of equal quality. face mounts done at prolab. i have foam mounted prints myself but wouldn't touch flex prints. i am keep, i process my own e6 and built my own camera but i won't mount a flex print at home

[mighew]

Thanks folks - I'm keen ... Michael Hewson
http://www.planis.com.au/uvista

[RoganJosh]

Glad to hear mighew, the more the merrier. Does that make 5 now?

[Maris]

Cheers Maris for the checklist t'was very kind of you - if you dont mind me asking.. have you exhibited in Brisbane before? If so which gallery and how was it?

In Brisbane? I hung my work at Imagery Gallery in Melbourne Street and Grey street and the Photographer's Gallery in George Street. At Imagery Gallery I was for a time the acting director (while the boss was away on an extended tour/shoot) and hung an entire AIPP Print Award show, Gordon Undy's Brisbane debut, various bits of student work, etc, etc.

Out of Brisbane I've had work up on the wall in Toowoomba, Stanthorpe, Noosa, Alice Springs. the Peoples Republic of China, Noumea, and my own Zone VIII gallery in Sunshine Beach.

I think nearly all of those venues are now defunct and have disappeared off the map. At present my photographs get hung from time to time at Point Light Gallery in Sydney.

How was it? See the second post in this thread. That just about sums it up.

[Maris]

Hearsay mongering is often a dubious pursuit but in this case it may be justified. Image makers intending to show at the Queensland Centre for Photography should move decisively and promptly to fix an exhibition date. Rumours fed by government funding cutbacks suggest that the QCP will close permanently midway through 2013. Frankly I opposed everything they stood for but to have an arts venue shut without a better one put in its place is wretched thing...rage, rage.

[RoganJosh]

Huge bummer maris.. never saw more than one decent exhibit in the place but the news sucks nonetheless. May explain their lack of reply to my emails.

Way to go brisbane art scene.