Dear Greg, I’ve been asked to show my art in non-gallery settings for ‘exposure’. Am I being exploited?

This is  a familiar request… and is often presented as a favour to you. You’re offered a wall, a room and an audience – declining can feel churlish and short-sighted. Accepting can feel pragmatic and grown-up – like you’re playing the long game. The problem is that “exposure” sits in a strange grey zone: it’s difficult to quantify, and rarely examined closely enough before artists are asked to trade real labour for a promise that never quite materialises.

Let’s clarify what’s going on… A restaurant, office space, members’ club, brand, property developer, or other, wants the sheen of culture without paying for it. They want to use your work on their walls because it improves their environment, photographs well, tells a story about who they are, and reassures the people passing through that this is a place with taste. That is not a neutral favour you’re doing for yourself.

The hook, of course, is always the same. “There’ll be lots of high net worth individuals coming through.” This is where the whole thing often tips into fantasy. Wealthy people do not magically turn into collectors because they walk past a painting whilst waiting for their Negroni. Most people in non-gallery spaces are not encountering the work as art at all. They’re reading it as décor – like the lighting or the furniture. If nobody is introducing it, contextualising it, naming it, pricing it, or framing it as something to engage with seriously, then nothing meaningful is happening. Your work is doing its job, but you’re not being paid.

I’ve seen this from both sides. I’ve hung artist’s work in fancy private members’ clubs with good wall space and plenty of wealthy people moving through, and even then, with the best intentions in the world, it’s the wrong context. People are there to meet friends, eat, talk business and switch off. They are not there to be introduced to an artist. The work becomes atmosphere – pleasant, perhaps striking, but ultimately invisible as art. If something comes of it, you’ve been lucky. Most of the time, nothing does.

So yes, usually this is someone taking advantage. Not always maliciously, but often disingenuously. They dangle the possibility of something incredibly unlikely in order to avoid paying for something they clearly want. Artists, understandably, fall for it because work sitting in a studio feels inert. At least on a wall somewhere it’s alive, doing something. That instinct is completely fair. What isn’t fair is pretending this is a strategy, or that “exposure” is likely to pay back the time, labour and reputational cost involved.

What’s being asked is rarely just lending a painting. It’s delivery, installation –  time spent hanging and adjusting. Possibly making work specifically for the space. Being responsible if something gets damaged. Coming back to take it down. Sometimes storing it. All of that is labour and labour has a value – even if the work already exists.

There are situations where doing something for free is justifiable without being exploitative. But the distinction is whether it’s an actual opportunity or just unpaid decoration. If an organisation really believes in the value of what you’re doing, that belief is evident in what they do. They put things in writing. They insure the work properly. They cover expenses. They are clear about how long the work will be up and what happens if it’s damaged. They introduce you to people. They host something in your name rather than letting your work quietly decorate an event that would have happened anyway. They make the work legible as art, not wallpaper.

If none of that is happening, then whatever language is being used, you’re not being offered a platform. You’re being used to enhance someone else’s.

A useful test is this: if the organisation is getting a clear commercial or reputational benefit, you should be getting a fee. It doesn’t have to be huge. Sometimes a modest fee is enough –  but a fee is not just about money. It’s a signal that your work is not a free styling resource. When someone says “we don’t have a budget”, what they usually mean is “we don’t have a budget to pay you, because we assumed you wouldn’t charge”.

You’re allowed to say no… calmly, politely and without drama. “I understand, but this is work, and I can’t supply it on the basis of exposure. If you can cover a fee and expenses, I’m happy to talk.” That’s not being difficult. That’s being professional.

And if you decide to do it anyway, do it with your eyes open. Do it because you want the work out of the studio. Because you want the photographs. Because the deadline helps you make something you’ve been circling for a while. Because you like the idea of it living in the world for a bit. All perfectly good reasons. Just don’t do it because someone has convinced you that a room full of vaguely affluent strangers will somehow convert into a meaningful return.

Because most of the time, it won’t, and the idea that it will is how artists end up working for free while everyone else in the room gets paid.