Spent 6 months doing gallery submissions wrong until a curator told me the truth

I had been sending high res files to every open call I could find for half a year. Got maybe 2 rejections and a lot of silence. Then I talked to a curator at a small show in Portland last spring. She said most jurors scroll through submissions on their phones now. They don't zoom in. They want a single image that pops at thumbnail size. I switched to sending one bold piece per submission instead of three detailed ones. Next 3 calls I got accepted. Anyone else had to adjust their submission strategy like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

miles2793d ago

Sent a ton of high res details" man that was my whole strategy too.

reese_nelson2d ago

Is there any chance the high res details helped you land some early interviews or get past a specific gatekeeper? I think sometimes the "phone scrolling" thing gets overblown, and a ton of detail shows you actually know the work. It worked for me a few times before I ever changed anything about my submissions.

chen.adam3d ago

That bit about jurors scrolling on their phones really got me. I used to think sending a ton of high res details showed you cared, but this makes total sense. I switched to one bold square crop image per submission after reading that and got my first acceptance a few weeks ago. Feels like the whole game changed and nobody told us.