International Visual Art Exhibitions – How to Manage Your Costs Effectively

This article was first published in 2015

Over the years of working with artists and producers its been great fun trying to add a science to the magic of pulling together a major visual art exhibition - sometimes with a publication attached.  So how do you plan it and cost it, while making sure it doesn't lose its cultural integrity?  I think this will be at the heart of all my posts - keeping artistic integrity while making the numbers add up - for everyone.  I want to document some of the things we tried - and things we learned through trying.  I have an artist friend who for fun once analysed all his commercial sales, and realised that outside his (let's call it baseline) - his work sells per square metre!

So for people who ask 'how do I cost a plan for mounting and exhibiting a major show'?  I'm going to share some personal arts management insights into an international art exhibition on which I had the pleasure of being the key co-producer with The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin.  Artist's Proof first opened in January 2009, and then toured around Ireland and the UK (from 2009 to 2011) - from a planning and costing point of view.

Its vital to get going on cost management, and resource planning - if you get your head around how to plan costs - you can achieve anything.

Step one:  Partner with a major Museum or Gallery.  In this project, the Chester Beatty Library (www.cbl.ie) , one of Ireland's real museum gems was the ideal host.  They have a stunning collection, in an amazing building in Dublin Castle, with terrific staff.  They had done two previous collaborations with Graphic Studio Dublin (where I was CEO 2008-2012), and were open to a third one celebrating the proofing process of fine art printmaking (of which there is an extraordinary collection in the Chester Beatty Library's permanent collection).  International guest artists and a selection of members from www.graphicstudiodublin.com took part.  See: Artist links and all works .

Step two:  Work closely with the artists, supporting timeframes that ensure the best lead in to help everyone achieve their own personal goals within the group exhibition.  Collate the artist's body of work with them, or with the group of artists, and make sure everyone is happy that there have to be some collective compromises - one example in this case was all 26 artists agreeing to use the same framer, so the framer can then offer a rate for additional sales to the audience, and maximise sales, while allowing planning for postage weights for mail order etc.

Step three:  Assemble a hearty bunch of follow on/touring venues - ideally who have support staff, to hang, promote and do educational work around the exhibition.  In Ireland and the UK these tend to be local authority funded, national museums or university venues.  Good co-op galleries like Centre Space Gallery Bristol UK (who hosted the show as part of the major international fine art print conference IMPACT) and other spaces which have unique audiences and stakeholders.  The other touring venues for Artist's Proof were:

Wexford Arts Centre, Mermaid Arts Centre, Ormeau Baths Gallery Belfast, Draiocht Arts Centre, Market House Gallery Monaghan,  Droichead Arts Centre Droichead.

Step four:  This is my favourite part of planning - which is probably why people hire me - do budgets and apply for funding. Break out all possible costs of the project and look at possible links to collaborators.  In Ireland, The Arts Council will seek to assist the innovative making of work, where it might not otherwise be possible.  If the art has a pre-planned exhibition strategy, then you have already demonstrated a collaborative approach to making sure any grant aid gets recognised in a public arena - a core part of the strategy.  The whole idea is to make sure all your partners on the project get something out of it - and then they will (hopefully) put something into it, in terms of funding or possible other support (insurance or transport).  Culture Ireland made sure that many of the Irish artists travelled to the international venues to share the processes of their work with audience - through really well planned education strands.

Step five: DO it & DOCUMENT it.  Plan the stages of the tour, and make sure that each venue is dovetailed with the last in terms of dates, so you don't have to transport the same work twice unnecessarily, or have storage costs.  In this exhibition each venue covered one leg of transport so as producers after two years we had only two transport legs to pay for (and we planned the venues closest the the studio!)

Don't even think of embarking on an international exhibition tour if you don't plan to document it all along the way, and make sure that the launch of each exhibition is attended by everyone involved in setting it up.  It's vital you do this for the artists who have made the work - they have spent years getting the art ready - so do it justice and celebrate all those who helped it happen.

Lastly - what happens when you have great art, in a well planned project, with hugely supportive venues? Magic moments of cultural collaboration.  

For me it was that Colm Toibin, who was writing the catalogue introduction, said he wanted to make an etching to get a better insight into the artists' work.  He picked the last page of his soon to be published novel Brooklyn - and worked with master-printer Robert Russell to make his first etching.  We had great laughs over the taboo of reading the last page of a novel first, and in this case having it as a stand alone piece of art.  I have no doubt Colm will explore this again with other writers.  And Brooklyn - now that its been adapted and made into a film premiering later this year - featuring Saoirse Ronan & Domhnall Gleeson - well who could have planned that at the beginning of it all? Magic...