Exhibition Announcements & Printed Materials

The art community is in love with glossy art cards, myself included. And I can't say that I blame us - they're shiny, relatively inexpensive as far as publicity goes, easy to distribute and really show off our work. But we simply don't think enough about them.

There is a lot of paper waste that results from this practice. Contrary to what we might hope, much of the paper content in these cards is not made from recycled materials. Also, the cards need to be distributed and are often mailed out as invitations, which uses yet more resources in transporting them. I am well-aware that there is far more wastefulness from other sources, but I don't see this as requiring an all-or-nothing solution. We should all do what we can to help.

In my own practice, I have been trying to limit my reliance on art cards and much prefer email invitations. I try to send out invitations for solo shows almost exclusively via email and print off only as many cards as people are likely to want, erring on the side of too few rather than too many because I can always print more. If I am participating in a group show and am asked prior to printing how many cards I want, I usually refuse them or get only a handful of cards for myself and request a pdf that I can email instead. Nowadays, I also try to sign up for gallery email lists when I can and have even been known not to provide a street address when one is requested to avoid getting physical cards sent to my house.

When I do offer printed cards at solo shows, I tend to print them off myself with more eco-friendly materials, such as ink from recycled/reused printer cartridges and mostly recycled paper stock or whatever I have laying around leftover from some other project. It is extremely difficult to find 100% post consumer paper that is appropriate for this, since the paper fibers are naturally compromised in the recycling process and these fibers become more so the more times they have been recycled. (This is part of why recycling isn't the best solution and we should consider alternatives to paper in general.)

If you don't want to give up your glossy art cards, consider printing somewhat generic cards featuring a signature piece that can be used to promote yourself at several events as opposed to quickly outdated announcements for specific shows. There's no reason you can't print different cards for different shows, but if you do so in a generic manner you can do more with the overage later. Such cards can be easily distributed or even sold as postcards outside of an exhibition setting. This is true for galleries as well if they work it out with the artist beforehand.

You can always attach a printed sticker label to such generic cards with whatever show information you want to impart, creating only as many announcements as you actually need. Admittedly it may seem less professional to use sticker labels to convey show information, but that's partly because no one has made a point of doing so and thus recipients assume that the cards were either printed wrong, rushed or reappropriated. This practice will become less obtrusive the more times people encounter it, especially if they know where it originated and why. (Seriously, what's wrong with reusing excess cards anyway? I think it's brilliant, both in regards to minimizing the overconsumption of resources and lowering show costs.)