How to Get an Art Exhibition Reviewed

The conventional route for getting exhibitions reviewed today takes more time, money, and expertise than it should. Shows may be getting attention, but they aren't getting thoughtful recognition.

In an ideal world of galleries and museums' own imagining, getting an exhibition reviewed by a relevant writer or in a well-known-and-read outlet would require nothing more than announcing the date that an exhibition would open and then arriving on that day to a line of journalists and critics waiting to speed-run the viewing, after which the writers would retreat to the cafe or some dark corner to tap out copy on their phones and laptops, with posts and pieces hitting people's feeds before close of business that same day.

In the following days, talking-head influencers would begin appearing like mushrooms on a wet morning, holding their arms out in that too-familiar social-media salute. And within a week or two, the think-pieces would begin to appear in the prestige journals that come shrink-wrapped in the mail for the members of that self-selecting, semi-literate audience that entered the art world because they liked picture books back when they were kids.

All of this mediated attention would then drive a feedback loop, such that subsequent posts and pieces would need to distance themselves and, in the best case, vehemently disagree with the early takes. Online flame wars would erupt. The influencers would amplify the noise. And yet further roundups of the "affair" or the "–gate" would appear. Until some other exhibition opened in some other venue and the whole process would begin afresh.

Ok, perhaps that's not everyone's "ideal" world, but galleries and museums want attention for their artists and exhibitions, if not for themselves, and getting it for just doing the work of mounting exhibitions, rather than for doing the work of trying to get attention, is high on everyone's measure of success.

How many exhibitions are competing for review?

Conservatively speaking, in the U.S. there are roughly 800 specifically "art" museums, including the many college and university art museums and galleries, kunsthalle-style exhibiting organizations, and other nonprofit organizations that can be counted on to put on roughly 3+ exhibitions a year. And there are roughly 1,000 art galleries who take exhibition-making seriously enough to attend one or more of the relevant regional and national art fairs to promote their programs.

That makes, at the very, very least, ~1,800 art and art-related exhibitions mounted every year in the U.S. This assumes just one exhibition per venue per year. The reality is that many museums mount multiple exhibitions at a time, and many galleries produce four-to-eight exhibitions a year, so the number of "reviewable" shows is actually much larger than this — conservatively one could say it's likely at the very least double this number: 3,600 shows looking to get some kind of attention, let alone reviewed by a thoughtful writer. And even that number is likely much larger.

What does the work of getting attention cost?

What these numbers mean is that the work of getting that attention, if not those reviews, is serious work. Which is why most museums and galleries invest in some level of marketing and communications operation.

At the barest bones end, this might look like an owner-operator gallerist building out her business's own webpage and email list and social media presence, sending out announcements and press releases to the local writers and journalists she's managed to network, inviting these same folks to walkthroughs of the show, or engaging in other "cultivation" events that will bring attention to her artists. That's work! And the cost is the time and attention it takes to do this work alongside of the other work of actually mounting exhibitions, engaging collectors (as opposed to writers) to buy what's on display, and then handling the logistics of fulfillment and payment.

At the well-funded end — the large museum, the large multi-venue gallery — this will look like a team of comms professionals who create multi-year strategies with campaigns and channel-specific goals. But these places will also hire professional PR firms to run the outreach and writer cultivation side of the operation. The large PR firms have deep ties to legacy media conglomerates — the ones that run multiple titles across different verticals (think Conde Nast) — and maintain a byzantine system of favors and "chits" that they call in for their clients when they need to deliver results. That's all work too! But it's paid well. PR firms often demand retainers in the $5,000–$10,000 range. And a comms team means salaries, most of which will need to be well north of $50,000/year.

What does a review actually do for a gallery, a museum, or an artist?

An owner-operator gallerist believes that getting a show reviewed will lead to more visibility and hence to more sales. This is no longer true. It may lead to visibility, but sales are no longer tied to what someone writes about an artist's show. After all, what someone writes might be negative? What the review of a show provides is recognition for an artist, and a gallerist: it's the evaluation of the work that gives them a sense of how their work is actually received.

A mid-size museum comms person believes that getting a show reviewed will lead to more funding, either from grants or from donors who will read the review and believe that what the museum is doing is worth supporting. In these cases, exhibition reviews can serve at best as minor supporting materials, but even then will not be the key data point that a funder is looking for to sway their decisions. Like the gallerist, what the review offers the museum staff, curators in particular, is some recognition of what they are doing and whether they are doing it well. It's akin to a kind of peer-review, but in truth there are more cost-and-time effective ways of providing this kind of feedback [i.e. Artlance].

An artist without a gallery might believe that critical writing about their work will lead to gallery representation, but in truth, galleries are focused on sales, and today most collectors are not interested in reviews of the works they are buying, they're interested in who else is buying them or in their own taste. Again, reviews of shows are about recognition, and an artist should want critical reviews of their work to know if what they think they're doing with their work is actually what they're doing.

What counts as a review in the first place?

We need to remember that a "review" here is not just a Google or Yelp review (though one of Artlance's writers, Brian Droitcour, made publishing art reviews on Yelp into a very interesting early writing project). A standard, back-of-book review (meaning in the back pages of an art or culture magazine such as Artforum, Frieze, or ArtReview) runs 450–750 words, with a handful of longer pieces running standard column length of 800–1,000 words. Some outlets specialize in microreviews of 80–120 words (e.g. The New Yorker has long published these in its "Goings On About Town" section). Reviews that turn into "features" will range from 1,500–2,000 words.

Why doesn't the press-release-and-pitch route work anymore?

The press-release-and-pitch route persists in today's arts media landscape, mostly as something that PR and comms outfits can show to clients (whether external or internal) as having done something. E.g. "We sent out your press release to a list of 1500 journalists and editors." "We've sent 900 emails, including followups, and have responses from 45, and 6 are showing strong interest…" and so on. It's work, but to what end? Recognizing this problem, some new PR initiatives have popped up that take payment based on results, not efforts. But these are few and far between, and what counts as "results" is often debatable (a hit on PRWire isn't going to cut it for most).

As most PR professionals can now tell you, in the age of email campaigns and social media metrics, the vast majority of press release emails and messages don't get opened let alone read. Ever since Gmail introduced inbox labels, press release emails get shunted into the Promotions tab, which writers and editors will open at best every couple of days to browse as if it were an RSS feed of new exhibition information. My promotions tab currently lists 54,964 unopened emails. It takes in between 50–150 emails a day. The vast majority of those are from museums and galleries with announcements of shows, news about artists, and other press-related items. What this means, at least for emails, is that the sender and the subject line are often the only thing writers or editors see.

What has changed is the rise of social media, and the capacity for many of these galleries and museums to develop their own audiences. This doesn't help with "coverage," but for museums and institutions in particular, who want "reach" and pay close attention to attendance numbers, social media channels have proven quick and efficient ways of "getting the word out" about their shows and presentations and programs.

What has also changed is museums (less so galleries) hiring communications and marketing professionals away from corporate gigs. If you worked in comms for, say, Coca-Cola, twenty years ago it would have been rare for you to make a move to a museum context. Not so today. CEOs and Directors of the big museums increasingly look for people coming from corporate communications to help run their shops, not just because it helps with internal comms — boards of trustees are treated just like corporate boards and major shareholders — but because the external language museums use to talk to their audiences has increasingly come to resemble the language that large corporate brands use to talk to their customers.

When does pitching still work?

Pitches from PR firms and operatives can still work, but they almost always come from people who have a relationship with the writer or editor. PR people have become ubiquitous in the arts and cultural firmament, and so writers and editors have become accustomed to seeing and speaking with them at events. The best ones go out of their way to read what writers have written, and to know their work, and to either be or appear to be interested in the writers for what they do. Whatever gruff exteriors writers might present to the world, it's most often just a cope for a fragile ego, which can be easily affirmed by someone simply taking notice. As PR, if it's your job to build relationships with writers, then reading what they write, having an eye (and ear) for good writing, is essential, because it will make building relationships with writers easier.

Then, with those relationships built, your pitches will get opened, and taken seriously. Moreover, you'll know who to pitch and who not to. Who to invite and who not to. Again, if this all becomes a volume game, the writers and editors will know, and won't take the pitch or the invitations seriously. As a writer, if you're just a name on a list, someone to fill out the press preview so that the right metrics can be passed along to the client, you know it, and you know you don't like it.

Increasingly, though, museums and galleries in regions away from the major U.S. centers (Los Angeles, New York) are paying for critics and writers' trips to visit their exhibitions. These "press trips" have become a real perk for writers, whose pay hasn't changed much in 20 years. (We've written about this for Artlance's substack here.) Putting aside the soft coercion such trips entail, for exhibitions that are otherwise difficult to get to, paying for press travel is a logical outcome of a media landscape that can no longer afford such "extravagances." A writer who is only investing significant time to see a show (because the travel is paid for) is much more motivated to write it up and get it placed than otherwise.

What are the routes, honestly?

Pitching critics and editors directly

This only works when the PR rep, or a curator or a museum comms person, has a relationship with the writer or editor. Anything that comes in as a general pitch, that isn't tailored, or from an unrecognized name, won't get picked up. It's hard to put a number on what this costs, because it must price in all of the networking hours and relationships that an individual builds with those writers and editors over time (how do you price a professional friendship? A colleague's time?).

Local and regional press

This is more straightforward. It's coverage, not criticism (in nearly all cases). These outlets are looking for what's happening each week. And they need to fill content, so an opening of a new exhibition or show will get some column inches. There's little cost. Though in some cases, there will be "lists" that function the same way advertising does (where, for example, one buys inclusion in a list of upcoming events), but these only often run into the low-three-figures (think $100–350). For the larger city magazines and public radio, the event must be big enough, or there needs to be a civic "story" behind it — so just a show opening won't get covered.

PR agencies and independent publicists

These can run $10,000/month from the big firms, a retainer that was once standard, to $1,000–$3,000/month for small shops and solo operators, of which there are many more these days. There is not a single publicist or PR rep who will "promise" coverage; they can only go on their track records and their demonstrated network of relationships to editors and writers (again, this is basically what one is paying for). For that money, galleries will get a "media strategy" which today often includes social media content, goals to hit, as well as efforts at coverage. If working on a year-long or multi-month contract, many PR firms will focus on just one, two, or three major "stories" (a single show, one or two artists), and so are not looking to get equal "coverage" for every event or exhibition that a gallery puts on or is associated with.

Direct critic outreach — the etiquette

If you want an actual critic to pay attention, the outreach has to be absolutely tailored: the outreach has to show that there is specific interest in the critic, a familiarity with prior work, and singular invite to visit the show or better, the artist's studio, or get a behind the scenes at the gallery. Anything that promises one-on-one attention is going to pique a critic's interest. The critic might be sceptical (they know they're being charmed or "wooed"), but they will often accept. Messages that begin with "I was talking with [artist x] and they read your piece on [subject y] and they are interested to meet you and talk about their new work. Even if it's not something you would write about, we think it would be productive…" or something along these lines are much, much better than a critic getting 500 words of press release junk or links to media kits.

Newsletters, Substacks, and independent platforms

We at Artlance are biased, but believe that this is the direction that a lot of this media is going to take. The business models of the magazines are failing. They can't cover everything as they once did. There will be room for one or two or even three "global" art and style outlets, but everything else is going to be driven by locality — hence why Artlance is organized by region. Once people begin to see the value in the newsletter and writer-byline pipeline, and realize that the brands that once reigned are no longer delivering what they once did, this world of independent platforms is going to drive the discourse, if they aren't already.

Commissioning — where Artlance enters

Artlance's model of commissioned independence really should be the gold standard going forward. If one compares it to the current media models, where ad buys, advertorials, press trips and previews, and PR hustles, all represent an industry "spend" that does not support writers directly, but is valued because it offers the illusion of editorial freedom, then Artlance's commissioning model can't be argued with. It puts more money in the writers' pockets, and over time, at scale, with the growth of independent platforms and the shift from corporate brands to byline brands, it offers greater editorial freedom than anything on the market. What is it not good for? The commissioning model might not reach the point of reputational value that comes with, say, a lengthy profile in The New Yorker; but again, this is really up to the reputation of the writer going forward, and the model of commissioned independence makes it possible for writers to build that reputation and to earn better money while doing so, so the incentive is not to stake that reputation on virality, or provocation, which is the temptation for any writer working today, whether writing on Substack or for the high-brow journals such as Liberties or The Point or Paris Review.

What makes a show coverable?

Shows by major artists who have not had a show in five-plus years will get picked up. Shows by artists' artists will get picked up. Shows by young artists that involve any amount of outrageousness will get picked up. Spectacles, like Florentina Holzinger's Venice Biennale 2026 performance (naked bodies ringing bells and riding wave runners), will get picked up. Shows that flaunt their expense will get picked up.

Shows that are presumed to be "populist" will not get picked up by veteran critics or outlets but will get covered by every style and design and fashion magazine. Fame still counts for a lot in the art world as in entertainment and fashion. Notoriety, one step down from fame, and indexed to a "scene," also counts.

Do hooks — a first museum solo, a regional first, a big curatorial thesis — matter?

To be honest, none of these "firsts" really matter from the critic's point of view. A "first museum solo" is a good hook for pitching an editor and getting the piece green-lit, and it may provide a hook for writing the piece, but most critics will tell you that these are ancillary to their interests, and most museum retros and solos are often too much about the arc of an artist's career rather than about a specific body of work and what it has to say about the present or the conditions of art at that moment — and these are the things that drive criticism (or should). Big curatorial theses are often better — for example, many of the shows that Massimiliano Gioni has produced at the New Museum in New York City present real food for thought: they take a position, they make an argument, they serve up discoveries (of rarely seen works and little-known artists), and so stand as "events" on their own. Similarly, the biennial and triennial exhibitions, which propose to offer a look at the "state of the art" of a certain moment or concerning a certain thematic (technology, the environment, regional history, etc.) are exactly the kinds of shows that a critic will want to contend with. After that, for gallery shows, solo or two person exhibitions are easier for a critic to wrap their heads around, and there's less of a feeling that one needs to mention some critical mass of works or artists, as one does with a group show (probably the bottom of the barrel when it comes to what a critic wants to write about). The solo gallery show is a kind of argument, it's punctual, it builds on what an artist has already done, and upon the moment, and is often the result of a few years of work. So like a book, it can be reviewed (tackling a museum retrospective is akin to the critic penning an essay on the entirety of what a writer has produced to date — often a 5,000–7,000 word essay of the kind one finds in The New York Review, that covers a writer's entire output; these only come every so often.)

What kills coverability?

What kills coverability is weak work. Not "bad" work, which can often get covered because a critic needs a foil for what is good, but "weak": work, whether curatorial or artistic, which just isn't up to the task, which doesn't confront the present, is trapped by cliche, is self-satisfied, and so on. Good critics can smell this a mile away, and it's not worth thinking about let alone writing about.

Does any of this differ for museums, galleries, or artist-run spaces?

The advice applies to all. Relationships matter. A demonstration that you have read a writer's work matters. That the artists or curators involved in the show have read the critic or appreciate her work matters. That the outreach is direct and personal and tailored and specific matters. That you're not serving the PR operation but the art, or artist, or institution, matters.

But again, if you want honest, independent criticism, and want to support excellent writers producing it, then Artlance is the solution, and all of the media strategy and pitching discussed above can come second to that.

How far in advance should you plan?

Weeklies need 1–2 week lead time; many art monthlies have moved to two-week windows for criticism (to match Artlance), but those that haven't will need 4–5 weeks minimum. Daily newspapers run all different timelines depending on the news of the day. These lead times match the ad deadlines, so any outlet's media kit will give one a good idea of how far out pitches need to come.

What should you expect a review to do?

For museums, reviews let them know that they are relevant. At best, they can be used in presentations to donors, the board, and to outside funders and grant makers to bolster (but never make alone) the case that what the museum is doing is relevant and is serving its audience, however defined. Genuine criticism can help a curator know if their work is touching ground, if their arguments resonate outside the echo chamber of their colleagues and close peers. This is valuable feedback, but it's too rarely offered in today's landscape. And harsh criticism isn't likely to be shared often, unless there are board members and leaders who are willing to face genuine criticism and internalize it. Too few are.

The major metric that most museums pay attention to is attendance — how many people through the door. And while that is the metric, the incentive is for museums to put most of their resources into the marketing of a show — getting the word out, having it show up in lists, broadcasting its affiliated programming — all in order to drive attendance. This is where "coverage" comes in. Coverage helps drive attendance. Criticism can, but that's not its goal. The audience for criticism is not the attendance audience, it's the internal audience — the curators and artists and their peers (scholars, writers, other intellectuals) for whom exhibition-making is its own cultural form.

Much the same can be said for galleries, though there the commercial disposition means collectors may be paying attention. But with galleries, collectors occupy the same position as do patrons and trustees at museums: a review may help make the case, but it's never the only evidence they want or need. All the rest remains true: a critical review of a gallery show is meant not for a general public, a random attendee; it is meant for the artist and their colleagues, the denizens of their world who are dedicated to the project of art, whatever that might be. Yes, a newspaper reviewer may have to pitch their tone and sensibility to a wide audience, but the numbers show that that general audience isn't reading those reviews; it's the same audience as the one that reads the art monthlies and the art newsletters.

In the end, one has to think of reviews — genuine criticism, not mere coverage — as a service to the intellectual mission of the institution and the artists and art work it is serving.

Where does Artlance fit, plainly?

We mentioned this above, but to stake it again: in comparison to the other media models that run art criticism, and not mere coverage, Artlance is the best option for genuine, independent criticism from excellent and experienced critics. Our model secures the most independence for the most pay for the most writers. There are individual critics out there with nice reputations who are able to negotiate nice and high per-word rates from their favored outlets, but that doesn't help other writers, and it doesn't help the labor cause of criticism, of writing, over all. Artlance does.

Artlance is also not a replacement for PR or external comms strategies. We don't do social media. We don't do crisis communications. Artlance alleviates the need for PR shops or museums or galleries to mass-pitch critics and then cross their fingers for a response let alone a review. There is a cost to all of that work, be it associates' salaries or PR retainers. Artlance takes that cost and applies it directly to paying writers and guaranteeing independent criticism. It's the most efficient use of those resources. There really is no argument against it.

Sources & further reading

• Of Travel Funds and Editorial Integrity — Artlance's Substack on press trips and what they buy
• Can You Pay for an Art Review? — the ethics of commissioned criticism, advertorial, and the PR economy
• How Artlance works for commissioners — the commissioning lifecycle, plainly
• How Unhealthy is Arts PR? — Tim Schneider of The Gray Market on the current state of Arts PR