Applying to Juried Shows? Read This!
Artist's’ Guide to Open Calls
Scan the listings of sites like Creative Capital, NYFA, Hyperallergic, and Call for Entry, and you’ll find more open calls, for more kinds of opportunities, than ever. You can apply for registries, residencies, flat files, grants, fellowships, incubator grants, curatorial projects, group shows, solo projects, art fairs, major public artworks, and more—all requesting a dizzying array of materials, and promising lots in return.
As open calls expand in variety, prestige, and mission, navigating the application process has become a job in itself. Which opportunities are career-builders, and which are time-wasters? How do you decide where to allocate your time, money, resources, and energy?
Let’s focus on open calls for shows and commissions. Here are some tips for reading the fine print.
1. Is the place legit?
Explore their website and exhibition history. Check their Instagram for quality and mutual followers. Bought followers or likes? Red flag. This is just the kind of place that offers Instagram views as “exposure.”
2. Read all the fine print.
No fine print at all? Red flag.
3. Are you eligible?
Check the required geographic location, cultural identity, age, genre, subject, theme. For example, Wave Hill’s 2026 Sunroom Project Space jury will choose six solo site-specific projects “that center non-human life and offer new perspectives on the concept of nature, particularly as it challenges speciesism—the belief that humans are inherently superior to other living organisms.”
The point is, be realistic. If you don’t fit, you’ll be eliminated in the first round.
4. Does it fit physically?
Could be frame, wall, hall: most places provide dimensions and plans, so use them.
5. Who are the jurors?
Respected curators and other industry leaders jury all kinds of shows. This is not a reason in itself to apply, but it could be a factor.
6. What does it cost you?
Application fees range from zero to $40, $60, and more. Some places charge you by the quantity of images you submit. Then there’s the cost of winning—like transportation and shipping fees, along with other expenses for exhibiting your work.
There’s also your time: do they want an artist statement and images, or budgets and statements about how the project will impact your practice?
7. What do they give you?
Is it prize money, purchase prize, financial and technical support, studio rent, professional development, exhibition development? If you’re from out of town, do they offer lodging and expenses? Read between the lines. Is the program set up to give you everything they list, or is their language possibly aspirational?
8. What do they want from you?
Gallery-sitting, gallery walks, artist talks, community workshops and programs, feedback and evaluation?
9. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
“Exposure” in itself isn’t always worth the cost.
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