First of all, these pictures you see do not exist in Lakeworth, Fl. I'm pretty sure they are of a gallery space they had that closed. As far as I know, they don't have an actual stand-alone gallery space at this time (which came as a surprise to me at the time), so don't be mislead by the photos. Here is my experience from an artist standpoint:
If you are an artist, and you are approached by Steidel Gallery because they think your work is so great, and would be a great fit for their booth at an event, but the fee is $$$$? Run.
I participated in this 2 years ago. They did not fulfill their contractual agreement in terms of wall space they agreed to give me (less then half the size of what I'd paid for) they did 0 marketing (no social media, their website hadn't been updated in years, no print, nothing). Once they've gotten the money, communication becomes nearly non-existent. They requested multiple large paintings from me, which I framed and wrapped carefully for delivery, they only hung 2, and didn't even bring the others to the event location so when people asked about them (because I had done my own marketing) they weren't there.
At the show, one of my paintings was left on the floor for over an hour, until I asked them to get it off the floor. This as people walked past with drinks, etc... Absolute disrespect for the work.
When I went to pick up the work after the show, they "lost" a painting, nobody knew where it was, which building, and nobody was around including "Steidel" to ask. I had to come back 3 days later, and they still weren't sure where it was, we found it after an hour of calls and texts.
It was a terrible experience, and I'm sharing it here now, because I decided that we as artists should look out for each other and I'm hoping this will give a heads up to any other artist who is being solicited to subsidize their event booth.
The entire experience felt like a scam. I wouldn't recommend it. read more
