Home > Essays > DJ at the Art Gallery
By Alonso del Arte, written 2016, revised 2023
Wherever a DJ goes, he's the most important person in the venue. At a wedding, he's more important than the bride and groom. At an awards ceremony, he's more important than the awards recipients. At a networking event, he's more important than whoever you want to network with.
And at an art gallery, the DJ is more important than the artist whose artwork you came to see and whom you had hoped to talk to. This is much in the same way a drunk driver who crashes his car into your house's front porch becomes the most important person in your life. You have to deal with him even though you would rather not.
But at least with a drunk driver, there is some hope for accountability. There is just no accountability for DJs who play too loud and who play inappropriate music. Not from the people who hire them and certainly not from the guests.
One time I went to an art competition. The damn DJ couldn't be bothered to reduce the volume of the music so that we could hear the event organizer explaining the rules of the competition.
And if you dare complain that the DJ is playing too loud and you can't talk to anyone without screaming, then you are the problem, you are the one who needs to always carry earplugs everywhere, just in case you go to a place where some obnoxious DJ you weren't expecting is there to sour your experience with his arrogance.
On top of playing too loud, some DJs compound the problem by playing inappropriate songs, such as rape anthems and hate songs. Such songs must be immediately skipped if they happen to be on a playlist at all. No excuses, no rationalizations. No one should have to explain to a DJ what a rape anthem is.
Before hiring a DJ for your art gallery opening reception, there are some important clauses to put in the contract.
Also, for your part, your event flier should indicate the DJ, e.g., "with sounds by D. J. Douchebag." That way, people are not shocked by the unpleasant surprise of an arrogant DJ playing too loud and interfering with the enjoyment of the artwork.
But why not just bypass these problems altogether and hire no DJ at all? Most DJs have no musical skill and what they do can pretty much be automated with a computer. You can use iTunes or maybe even Windows Media Player. Just put together a playlist, set crossfades between songs, preview it in the exhibition space.
Then, on the day of the event, all you have to do is hit play and adjust the volume as needed to be heard but not to overpower conversations. There's no need to have someone in front of the computer the whole night, half-dancing, pretending to adjust settings on the equipment when in reality pretty much everything has been set in advance.
Siri and Alexa have no ego to bruise. And even real musicians with actual musical skill, as opposed to DJs, are humble and understand that if the event is not a concert or a dance, music is supplementary, not the main attraction.