Home > Essays > The importance of properly rejecting proposals
If you own an art gallery or are an art director of one, you're certain to get lots of proposals for exhibits. Some of these proposals will be quite good in general, but not really suited to your gallery. Others will be just plain bad. What do you do? Do you just keep quiet and hope they get the hint?
That's the worst thing you could do, whether you look at it from a purely legal viewpoint or you also consider basic professional courtesy as an artist and a human being.
What if you ignore a proposal from one artist one year, and the next you accept a proposal from a different artist for a similar concept? The first artist could decide to sue you for theft of intellectual property, and then it might be very tough to prove that you never even looked at the proposal. That may seem an unlikely scenario, but clearly nothing good can come from failing to respond to a proposal.
Sometimes it just can't be helped that someone will react badly to rejection. But merely ignoring the proposal can make that reaction worse and more consequential for you. Compare these two statements:
a) "I hate that gallery! They rejected my proposal."
b) "I hate that gallery! They wasted my time, and they tied up my proposal for months."
It is clear that a) is sour grapes, and people will recognize it as such. But b) is a warning to other artists: stay away from that gallery, they will lead you on and waste your time.
Every proposal deserves a response. But not every proposal deserves a detailed response. Some proposals might just be so bad that they deserve nothing more than a simple "No." Other proposals might deserve a sincere "no thanks" with a little bit of elaboration.
But what if you really are flooded with so many proposals that you can't actually respond to any of them? Maybe you have to set up an automated reply saying just that:
Thank you for your interest in my gallery. Unfortunately, I receive so many proposals that I can't properly respond to any of them. To conserve space, my gallery assistant will delete or discard your proposal, along with any work samples or supporting documents you sent along with it. This message will be the only record I retain of your proposal. Please feel free to submit your proposal to another gallery.
This way the artist doesn't feel that the proposal is tied up at a gallery that has no intention to even consider it. If later on you accept a proposal from a different artist for the same concept and the first artist sics a lawyer on you, you can say you rejected the proposal and discarded it, so by the time you got the second proposal, you just couldn't remember the first proposal. (Seems unlikely an artist can afford a lawyer, but you never know).
Only problem with this is that it might give the impression of puffery, that you think you're better than everyone else. There are more nuanced options for dealing with a large number of proposals.
One option is that you could give your most trusted gallery assistant rejection authority: she rejects most proposals (and informs the proposer of this rejection) but passes on to you a few proposals for more serious consideration. Of course here it is important for the gallery assistant to not give the impression that the proposer can go over her head:
The artistic director has assigned me to review incoming proposals; she will only consider proposals that I have approved for further consideration. I have reviewed your proposal and determined that it is not suitable for this gallery and not worthy of further consideration.
For proposals marked for further consideration, the gallery assistant should notify the proposer accordingly:
I have reviewed your proposal and I have determined that it is worthy of consideration by the artistic director. The artistic director is very busy, she will make a decision on your proposal at her earliest convenience.
And then, when your gallery assistant has whittled things down to a few worthy proposals, that's the time for careful consideration and thoughtful response.
There really are only one or two people you need to explain a rejection to: if you're the artistic director but not the owner, then you need to be able to explain it to the owner, and to the artist if the artist is someone you do want to exhibit in your gallery if maybe they put forward a proposal better suited to your gallery.
Don't worry about posterity. It's reasonable that you don't want to be the gallery that rejected Pollock or Picasso, but it would be much worse to be the gallery that just wouldn't give a straight answer to someone who went on to become a famous artist with another gallery.