“I realised I liked flogging it more than I liked doing it”

What Steven asked Genevieve Tullberg, manager of The Halpern Gallery at Nucleus Arts

The Halpern Gallery in Chatham is a leading exhibition space for artists in Medway. Steven met gallery manager Genevieve Tullberg there to discuss the challenges of exhibiting and selling art. They also discussed the Halpern Pop, why she doesn’t produce art herself, and how Medway’s interconnectedness led to her living here.

Genevieve hanging 'Bloom' in the Halpern Gallery by artist Dom Holmes.

What is the difference between the Halpern Gallery and the Halpern Pop?
The Halpern Gallery is the larger gallery in Chatham, and the Halpern Pop (in Rochester) is small. We always say small and perfectly formed. I don’t know how perfectly formed it is. It is small, but with nice high ceilings so you can fit a lot in. You can have more experimental work in the Halpern Gallery in Chatham. You can have nothing on the walls. We've had artists rolling on the floor in cling film. That was before my day, but that definitely did happen. There's much more room for experiments here and it doesn't have to be 2D. We can have anything. In the Pop, it really needs to be hanging on the wall. We have had a couple of lovely ceramic shows there, and that has worked, but it's a small space for 3D.

Between the two, how many different events or exhibitions would you say you put on in an average year?
Between the two, I'm going to say 40. That's such a guess, but on average, sort of there. The Gallery is pretty much fully booked. The Pop is a harder seller at the moment. I think that is because selling art is difficult at the moment and you would really only have a show if you wanted to sell. Here, quite often, people have a show because people have exhibitions for different reasons. It is also fantastic to photograph your work in the gallery. An exhibition here looks fantastic on Instagram, and people can see that in Edinburgh, and all it costs you is £200.

People pay to exhibit their work. Are they renting the space?
We're trying to change the model actually. At the moment, and this was inherited when I started a long time ago, you rent one week or two weeks. One week is £200, two weeks is £350, and you pay commission on sales. You do not have to sell. I think this is becoming a harder sell because artists are finding it difficult to sell and make money. Our experiment on that was our Summer Exhibition, which was the first time we did that. That's an open call. You pay £15, submit digitally three pieces of work, and one will definitely get chosen. The idea is to support artists because it's crushing not getting chosen for something. It's crushing to pay for something. Artists invest a lot of money applying for things they don't get into. It's not because their work isn't good, it just doesn't fit that thing. That's our offer here. I think we are looking to do more group shows like that where the risk for the artist is £10 or £15, maybe £20 if there's only ten of them. We've done a few of those. Roost, which is just at the Halpern Pop, which was curated by my colleague, and she chose 15 artists, invited them to take part. They're not all Medway, not even all Kent. Every single one said yes and put work in. Because it's a lovely thing. The tragedy is, really, artists should be being paid to exhibit. But we don't have that budget. I'd love that though.

Why is that? Is that because the gallery itself is free to enter? Is that the nature of the economics of local galleries?
We have artist studios. The gallery is here, originally, I believe, to support the artists in their studios. I think as a charity, and as a building, you have to make every space cover its costs. All we're doing is covering costs. No one is making money here. And if we were, it's ploughed into looking after the artists. But I genuinely think we make sure we cover the costs. If there's a gap, we have to fill that to cover the costs. I'd love to know how big commercial galleries do it. But the commission, if you sell something, here is 25%. The commission is 50 to 60%, maybe more on places you're invited and not paying.

Do you ever have ticketed events where people would pay to attend?
Never. It's difficult. You shouldn't say never, should you? Really, that would not be the ethos of Nucelus Arts, I don't think, but also, who'd pay? (laughs) The work is fantastic, I'm not saying it isn't, but...
The challenge is getting people to come without there being an extra barrier.
We've got Zandra Rhodes' project coming here, and she's doing something with the Arts Council National Lottery Fund going into Medway schools and then they're going to exhibit in here.

Does the money raised from artists booking the space cover the cost of the space, or do you need to get funding from elsewhere?
(sighs) It does cover the costs, but God, it's hard won. When I first came here, I just used to fill in the calendar with bookings. Now we're going out and looking for artists and trying to get them, and when there is a long gap, then we do a group show. With Rochester Art Gallery shutting, Francis Iles gone, Sun Pier House is shut at the moment, but they will be opening. We are so short of gallery space in Medway. What we want to do an Arts Council bid. Our fundraiser has written half of it. There is an absolute need, and what I would like to do in there is to get, for example, four paid for exhibitions a year. That would be the artist will get paid, and we will get paid, and there is somewhere free for you to come and see high quality art. That is good for our artists, it's good for Medway artists, it’s really good for Nucleus Arts. It's so important.

You're talking about artists really struggling with sales. Is that because of broader economic issues?
That's my understanding. Obviously, I talk to artists wherever I go and that is my understanding. But everybody you speak to that's not creative, there's not a lot of money about. Definitely we find it harder to sell. And the Pop, we really thought that was going to be easy. It's Rochester, in a swanky cafe, people will trot in, and it's just not the case. We don't really know how to change that (laughs).