Help! I Hate...My Gallery

Every week, The Art Journal’s resident art world Agony Aunt Charlotte Jansen answers your questions about access, gatekeeping and sticky social problems.

Have a burning question for her? Get in touch anonymously here.

I’m an artist and I've been working with a well established gallery for several years. Initially, I was thrilled by the opportunity, but the gallery’s expectations are becoming increasingly overwhelming. They seem to want an almost endless supply of new work, with deadlines that leave little room for creativity, experimentation or even rest. 

I’m beginning to feel more like a production line than an artist, and I’m worried that pushing myself to meet their demands will compromise the quality of my work and it is already affecting my enjoyment of making it. 

Going into the studio feels like a slog, and I'm feeling the physical and mental impact of the stress and expectations. I'm making better money than I ever have but I am questioning whether I can keep up this pace.

How do I set boundaries with a gallery that seems to expect too much without losing the opportunity altogether?

What you are living is the curious predicament of the successful artist: finally making a decent living, only to discover that the price of success appears to be becoming an industrial machine.

I've seen several acquaintances go from small, low-key gallery representation to a huge blue chip. They're suddenly earning six figures and have big studios and mortgages. But seem pretty miserable, as if their time is not their own.

Surely this defies the point of being an artist, the freedom from the shackles of a gruelling day job. At times I envy their bank balance but then I remind myself, everything has a cost.

It is worth remembering that your gallery represents your work, not your entire nervous system. Somewhere between your first successful exhibition and your present predicament, the relationship seems to have acquired an expectation and demand you're now struggling to meet because making art is not like that, as we know – and as your gallery knows.

They're picking up the pace because they can sell you now, your market is strong and there is money to be made but I can see how that undermines your own practice.

The gallery may be accustomed to your current output, but that doesn't mean it is sustainable. Expectations have a curious habit of becoming entitlements if nobody ever challenges them. I wonder what your contract says, and how much you can push back on their demands? 

I'd suggest having a frank, friendly conversation with your liaison or most trusted person at the gallery before you reach the point of contemplating arson in the stockroom. Explain that you value the relationship enormously, but the current pace is affecting both your wellbeing and the quality of your work. Make it clear that you want to continue working together, but on a more realistic basis. 

I very much doubt this situation will be new to them. Many galleries simply push artists as far as they possibly can. Sometimes, because they want them to be better artists, more often because they want to milk as much money as they can.

Try to offer a revised arrangement: fewer pieces, longer lead times, a more carefully planned exhibition schedule or perhaps a combination of these. You might even suggest that scarcity could be rather good for business. After all, an artist who produces less work isn't necessarily an artist who sells less work.

It might also be worth asking yourself what, precisely, you are afraid of losing. Is it the gallery itself, the income, the prestige, or the reassuring feeling that somebody important thinks you're pretty good? 

These are all perfectly understandable concerns, but they aren't necessarily the same thing. Sometimes we cling to arrangements that have stopped serving us simply because they once represented everything we'd hoped for. 

You might discover that a modest reduction in output makes very little difference to your income, while making an enormous difference to your happiness. Does this gallery get you? Their response will tell you something important about the relationship. A genuinely supportive gallery should want you to remain creatively alive, not only commercially productive.

Most importantly, resist the temptation to apologise for having limits. You aren't asking for a sabbatical on a private island with a personal chef and a butler. You're just asking for sufficient time and energy to do the job properly. At your pace. 

Money is lovely. At least, I imagine it must be, as I'm a writer. But financial success is a hollow trophy if the studio becomes somewhere you dread going. You didn't become an artist to spend your life fulfilling purchase orders. Your gallery may have a business to run, but you have a life to live – and an artistic practice to protect. There are some things that aren't for sale, and your mental wellbeing is one of them.