I feel very flattered that people find my website and they invite me to be part of either a festival, a book that showcases artists, or an online gallery. Usually there are fees involved which is understandable but it leaves me thinking why does the artist have to assume all theses costs? In some cases the fees are outrageous. I compare this to inviting a musician to perform and he has to pay so that he gets "exposure." Not only that, if he gets lucky getting tips he must give 50% of that to the organizers. That would never happen, right? Musicians get paid to perform or at least they get to keep the tips. We don't get paid when we show our work but why should we pay?

I have been part of many events, exhibits, festivals, etc, and yes, a lot of them charge a fee. There are costs involved in organizing such events and splitting those costs among the artists, when done honestly and fairly, results in reasonable fees which I have been willing to pay. I am also part of a few online galleries that do not charge anything upfront. They take their commission when there is a sale. I have been very happy with this business model and I have succesfully sold my art through galleries such as Saatchi Art, Art Finder, Zatista. I love them!

What makes me feel wary are those events, festivals, galleries, or publications that charge fees that are over thousands of dollars! It is very obvious that their business is getting money from the artists, period. They are NOT in the business of promoting and selling art.

It is very sad that some emerging artists may actually fall for this in hopes to get "exposure". When the organizer's only interest is making money through the artists, there's very little motivation for truly helping the artist make a sale. I actually fell for a gallery like this a few years ago. The gallery went out of business a few months after they took my money. I wonder how many other artists were cheated. This gallery was VANGO ART which I describe in detail at the end of this article. Their founder and CEO, Ethan James Appleby, promised to refund me but I never saw my money.

Again, I do not want to confuse the galleries or organizations that are genuinely helping artists (reasonable fees or even a percentage of a sale are perfectly fine). What I am trying to expose here are the ones that make money by preying on the artists' dreams.

These are some examples. I will keep adding more as I get them:

1. Every two years I get invited to the FLORENCE BIENNALE. While it is a genuine festival that probably gives artists a lot of "exposure" (not necessarily sales) the fee they charge makes absolutely no sense (plus you are in charge of the costs of shipping your art, accommodations, airfare, etc, all you get from the fee is a little space to put your art). I am not sure how much it is right now (I tried to look in their website but they are not open about it, you have register to find out the costs) but the first time I got invited many years ago the fee was $2000 dlls!!!! Take a look at this archived article from artbusiness. com:

https://artbymarlenellanes.mysupadupa.com/blog/the-florence-biennale-scam

2. GALERIA GAUDI from Madrid, Spain, has contacted me several times offering me to show my paintings along with other artists at several international fairs such as Stroke in Munich. While I do not know how much it would be to pay Stroke directly, Galeria Gaudi charges $1300 dlls to show only 5 paintings! This fee only covers that, nothing else. On top of that, if you make a sale they take 40% (again, nothing wrong with galleries taking their commission, I do that all the time, but in this case, they have already charged the artist and they want more??). And yes, the artist is in charge of the costs of shipping the art (and if the artist wants to travel to Munich, obviously that's on him too). These costs were for the year 2020.

3. SPOTLIGHT MAGAZINE, an online and printed magazine, charges 159 Euro for 1 page. Doesn't sound so bad but again, multiply that for about 111 pages and you will see that their business is in making money from the artists, not really helping them make a sale. I wonder if this magazine actually leads to sales. I have never heard from this magazine before except in that email that I received "inviting" me to be part of it. Do they do any marketing? (why bother if they are already making money through the artists). Oh, and they sell their printed magazine for 22 Euro (which they probably print on demand). Shouldn't they distribute this magazine for free to galleries, hotels, etc??? Maybe they do but I highly doubt. Please correct me if I am wrong. Update: I have been getting new emails for another magazine, Art IDEAL, which turned out to be from the same company with similar fees plus you have to pay an entry fee of 20Euro for them just to decide if they like your art (after that the high fees kick in). Another magazine of theirs is Circle Quarterly Art Review with similar fees. The company name is Circle Foundation. These costs were for the year 2020.

4. ARTAVITA, they publish your art in their books and "help" artists participate in important art festivals, but the artist is the one paying ridiculous high fees to be part of that (again, they make their money from the artists, their interest is not really helping the artists make sales). They have been doing this for a very long time. This article dated February, 2014, explains it very well:

https://www.robertstech.com/blog/?p=1373

4. THE SKETCHBOOK PROJECT AT THE BROOKLYN ART LIBRARY. This is a clever idea: a blank sketchbook gets sent to the artist, the artists has 10 months to fill out the sketchbook, then he sends it back. This Art Library is full of sketchbooks from all over the world! I personally would love to visit. The only thing that may put it in the category of a scam is the fact that they charge the artists $30 for the sketchbook (you have to use their sketchbook) and if you want them to make it digital then it's $65. Obviously these people make a living through selling sketchbooks, nothing wrong with that, but again it's not nice to take money from the artists. Why not get a sponsor to send those sketchbooks for free and also to give giftcards to the artists that send the sketchbook back? Instead they are making the artists work for free (after taking their money) so that they can have more sketchbooks to show in their library. It's sad that artists fall for the false idea of "exposure." Their name is also deceiving, people may think it's connected to the Brooklyn Public Library and it is not. These costs were for the year 2020.

5. WORLD WIDE ART BOOKS which includes these art books:

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY MASTERS

CURRENT MASTERS

IMPORTANT WORLD ARTISTS

They print the books and either sell them or give them free to galleries, art consultants, etc. This sounds like a great way to get exposure, but your advertising will become old pretty fast. As soon as the new book gets published you are forgotten. Their prices are very expensive starting at $780 for half page to $3985 for six pages. Is it really THAT expensive to print a book? Why don't they find sponsors to pay for printing the book? That way they can lower the cost for the artist to a reasonable amount or better yet, get a comission for every art that sells through their books. Obviously their best interest is just taking money from the artists period. Their work is done. If they already got paid, do you think they will make the effort to get those books to the right art buyers? By the way, they don't even bother to actually curate the work properly. They pretty much invite anyone who has "something" that looks like art posted on the internet. Trustpilot has reviews that explains this and even one person says that she is not a professional artist and got their invitation! These costs were for the year 2020.

6. CLIO ART FAIR VENICE LOS ANGELES NEW YORK charges $1000 for 4 feet wall space! How many paintings can you fit in that little space!! lol!! Then the prices go up depending on how much wall space you want, for example, 28 feet costs $8,960!! (no, this does not include shipping your paintings to the location of the fair, don't dream). These costs were for the year 2021.

7. ITSLIQUID has many art fairs. The one I got invited to is THE BODY LANGUAGE 2021. I am not sure why I got invited since I do not paint the human figure as much (with some exceptions like the image at the top of this article). I asked them about their fees and they said they charge per painting. They were not very clear how much, they just gave me approximations. They used a painting from my website as an example but they did not realize the measurements are in inches so they quoted me thinking it was in centimeters. So for a tiny painting measuring 24 x 18 cm (9.5 x 7 in) they charge 200 Euros! Imagine how much they charge for a medium or large painting! Now multiply that for the amount of paintings you want to show! This fair takes place in Venice, so of course these fees do NOT cover shipping all the way to Venice (and then shipping back the unsold work... maybe all of it?? lol).

UPDATE: On October 17, 2022, ITSLIQUID invited me to be part of VENICE INTERNATIONAL ARTFAIR 2022. Again, they do not disclose their fees right away so after a couple of emails I was told that for 3 paintings measuring 30 x 24 inches (76 x 60 cm) the cost would be 1500 euro plus taxes (plus shipping the art back and forth). The duration of this festival is 3 weeks (December 2-23). It makes me wonder if local artists in Italy have given up on these festivals and now they are targeting other countries. As I have always said: their business is making money directly from the artists, they are not in the business of really promoting and selling art.

8. VAN GOGH ART GALLERY from Madrid, Spain (not to confuse with VANGO ART which I describe at the end of this article), invited me to participate in ART INNSBRUCK 2021 which is an art fair in Austria. They charge 1000 Euros for just a little space enough to show only 2 paintings. Besides the 1000 Euros they also take 40% comission if your painting sells. I am in charge of all the shipping costs to send the paintings to this gallery and then to ship them back if they don't sell. I went to the ART Innsbruck 2021 website to see how much they charge. You can sign up as a gallery or as an individual artist. This is where the "scam" truly originates. They charge a minimum of 4800 Euros for 30m² ( 160 Euros per m², price increases if you want a bigger space) and a mandatory fee of 600 Euros for one page in their catalog... yes ONE page, lol. Add 20% for VAT to both charges. Those 2 fees are the basic charges, it will get pricier once you sign up. So if you do the math, depending on how many artists Van Gogh Art Gallery will take to this fair (I mean their art, the trip for the artist is not included, lol) they really don't make that much money unless there is a sale. Are there a lot of art buyers in Austria? I wonder how their economy is in that country. So it really isn't such a great deal for the gallery either. Why does the ART Innsbruck 2021 charge so much?? What do they use the money for??? All you get is an empty floor for 4 days! Oh yeah, they list other perks included such as air conditioning, lol, I am not kidding.

9. ARTSPER, an online gallery, charges 390 Euros a year and on top of that they take 30% comission of every sale. They do offer a "free" option in which you only pay for the first three months, then after that it can be free and the comission goes up to 40%. This one doesn't sound so bad. I might try it later.

10. THE BRICK LANE GALLERY, located in London, charges £660 per 3 meter wide space to exhibit works for only 2 weeks!! How many paintings can you fit in 3 meters and how many people will see your work in only 2 weeks?? Shipping the work to London and back is obviously NOT included. They do not take any comission (they are already getting £660) which that's why they only exhibit your work for 2 weeks so that they can bring in as many artists as possible, one after another one, and keep charging £660. So again, they are not in the business of selling art. Their business is taking money directly from artists, period. These fees are for the year 2021.

11. ARTEXPERTISE - STORICI DELL'ARTE IN FIRENZE  is an "independent cultural association" based in Florence which takes artworks from different artists to art fairs that take place in many different countries in Europe. They invited me to 3 different art fairs and on top of charging their high fees for just 2 works they take 10% of the sale!!!! For the IV Biennale d'Arte della Versilia their fee is 430,00 euro. For ART SHOWROOM IX, in Florence, they charge 280 euro. For ART Innsbruck 2021, in Austria (the same one I describe on #8), they charge 530,00 euro (at least they charge less than Van Gogh Art Gallery and their comission is less). Shipping to those places and back is obviously NOT included. Again, when they take all those paintings to the art fairs these people will already have been paid so I doubt they will make any effort to make a sale (it's just a fun event for them). I know it looks good on an artist's resume to say that "they have exhibited in Europe." European countries always sound "fancy," but why? It's just in our heads. The USA has a better economy therefore more chances to sell here. Art fairs here in the USA have reasonable fees, I can have the entire booth all for myself!! (not just 2 little paintings) and I don't have to spend a lot of money on shipping and putting my paintings at risk. Prices that I have paid so far here in the USA to show my work at art fairs range from $0 to $400 dlls, yes for an entire booth! with as many paintings as I can fit and NO comission to anybody.

12. I was hesitant about adding Society6 to this list but lately this company also feels very close to a scam. Society6 is an online store that has a lot of different products with art printed on them. Artists upload their work and Society6 prints them on demand (only when they make a sale). Artists make 10% of the sale. It is really fun to upload your work and play around with the layout for each product. It takes a little bit of time but once you set up all your products they are there forever (for as long as Society6 exists) and that is all you have to do! (maybe...). When I started, my products were selling very well but over the years Society6 got very crowded. It's really hard for people to find your work. For the year 2020, my earnings were $3.50, lol!!! Now Society6 is asking artists to do the marketing through social media. It seems that is the only way you can make sales. Social media is very time consuming! How many hours do you have to invest on social media in order to make a sale? and you only get 10%. If you are already on Society6 try dividing your earnings by the amount of hours you have invested on social media plus the time you took to produce your beautiful art and please come back and tell me (I have asked some artists but they don't tell me). How much are you making per HOUR? $3? $1? 10 cents? lol. So Society6 has it great! They have the little artists do most of the work for free: artists make the art and they are also the sales person (slaves). Society6 makes most of the profit!! What a nice deal!!! Society6 is not the only store with this business model. There's tons of them nowadays, for example: ShopVida, CafePress, Teepublic, Legaleriste, etc. I think they should be the ones doing the marketing, not the artists. I refuse to be their slave sales person... but wait, please visit my shops lol:

https://society6.com/marlenellanes​

https://shopvida.com/collections/marlene-llanes-1

https://www.cafepress.com/profile/21671690

https://www.teepublic.com/user/marlene-s-cats

https://www.legaleriste.com/marlene.llanes

On Le Galeriste I only have 3 images on different products. In order to be able to upload more images I must make my first sale... that hasn't happened, lol! Again, I would have to convince my friends and followers to buy something which I refuse to do. Le Galeriste should be the one doing the marketing. I will just keep waiting and someday I will make my very first Le Galeriste sale, lol! Would you be my first Le Galeriste customer?

Did I mention that while Shopvida lets you upload as many images as you want without having to buy or sell, what they do is add every single product you publish onto your shopping cart!! Yes, I have to manually empty my shopping cart otherwise my total shows hundreds of products with a total in the thousands!! Do they think this will motivate me to buy ALL of MY products? lol

On a last thought in regard to these print on demand companies, what if the company is hiding the sales from the artist so that they don't have to send any money? This would make them a true scam. I am not accusing them of doing this. Society6 as well as Cafepress have sent me my earnings (as far as I know), but since they control their website they could easily hide a portion of the sales and you would never know. If you are a journalist that likes to do investigations, I just gave you an idea for a viral article or even an episode of American Greed! As much as I would like to investigate, I only have time for creating art.

13. I wasn't sure about adding XANADU GALLERY because I have been following this gallery for many years and the owner seems genuinely passionate about art, not just making money. He not only has 2 brick-and-mortar galleries but he also offers online workshops for artists (at reasonable prices), writes an interesting blog for both, collectors and artists, wrote a book with many good ideas on how to be a successful artist, and at one point, many years ago before buying art online was popular, he tried to have an online gallery open to artists who were not necessarily showing at his brick-and-mortar gallery. I was part of his online gallery. I am not sure why he decided to take it down. He could've been equally successful as all the popular online galleries such as Zatista, etc. I decided to include Xanadu Gallery because they do have a publication that charges money to be part of it. I am not accusing Xanadu Gallery of being scammers (or any of the galleries I list in this article), all I am doing is questioning if what they do is a fair practice and if in the end it will benefit the artists, not just the gallery. Xanadu Gallery publishes a catalogue every 2 months that they send to their collectors (that's what they say). They charge $190 per one single page and if a collector wants to buy a painting the only contact information provided is the gallery (this makes me think they also take comission if there is a sale which I think it's wrong if the artist already paid money). About 50 pages of the catalogue gets filled with artists' works so 190x50= $9500!!!!! Is it really that expensive to print out such little catalogue? Of course not! Again, why take money from the artists? Why not find sponsors (big companies) that will pay for advertising instead of taking money from the artists? (who, in many cases, are struggling to make a living). The most recent version of this catalogue is also published online and I think it stays there for a couple of months so at least you get to have your work online for that amount of time and not just on the printed version which we all know it ends up in the recycle bin (this is a little better than the other publications I mention in this article). You can google it and take a look. It doesn't seem curated, they pretty much take anybody willing to give away $190 regardless of the quality of their work. This price was for the year 2021. On a side note, I follow Xanadu Gallery on facebook and occasionally I used to write comments on their posts when I saw art that I liked. My name on facebook is "Art by Marlene Llanes." Well, having this name made Xanadu Gallery block me from their page. I understand that they might've thought I was using them to advertise my art but the truth is whenever I write a comment on someone else's post their post gets published on my follower's feed (more exposure for them for free!). That's how social media works. It would have been a win-win for both of us, but I guess they only see their side. Oh well, it's their loss, lol.

UPDATE: Xanadu Gallery just posted on their blog that they do not hand out any paper material to potential customers!! So what do they do with these printed catalogues that I mention above? I know they say they send them to their collectors (as if people don't get enough junk mail everyday) but why not hand them out to people visiting the gallery? Here is the link to that particular article

https://reddotblog.com/why-we-dont-hand-out-photos-or-brochures-in-the-gallery-21/​ 

and in case the article gets deleted here is an image:

So artists spend their money on those catalogues but they are not handed out!!!!!!! So sad!!!!!

ANOTHER UPDATE: On July 1st, 2023, I decided to click on the link above that takes you to the article and surprise! the article disappeared! lol. I guess they realized they were exposing the truth: the catalog is just a way to take money from the artists, period. Nobody cares where those catalogs end up, the gallery already made money.

14. ARTFARE charges a yearly subscription of $192 plus they take 10% comission of every sale. This doesn't sound so bad but having to pay upfront still puts this in the vanity gallery gategory. Not really a scam but again I am not saying that all of the galleries and publications I list here are scammers. I just question if it's a fair practice and I leave it up to the reader to decide. If they already got paid from the artists their best interest is getting more and more artists to pay and not really making sales. This leads to getting lost in a website that has thousands of artists. With the yearly membership Artfare offers you your artist's profile plus they do Instagram and newsletters. They say that they also offer marketing advice to the artists (which may mean that you have to use your own social media to connect your followers to your profile on Artfare - I'd rather use my social media to link to my own website so that people can buy directly from me, if I am using an online gallery they should be the ones doing ALL the social media for the artists otherwise what's the point?). The price of $192 was for November 2021.

15. AGORA GALLERY sent me an email telling me they want to represent me. They don't tell you their fees upfront (of course) but if you look in their website you will find out that they charge $50 just to review your portfolio. If you get accepted then they have several representation options, the "cheapest" one is $3,450 per year!!! lol!! This does NOT include shipping, framing, etc. On top of this, they get 30% commission if your art sells... so they already took your money and they want more!!! For that yearly fee there should be NO commission. With the "cheapest" option you don't get real space in their gallery, they will put a digital version of your work in a monitor in the gallery, lol. If you want physical space for your work then you have to pay $17,850 WOW and LOL.  And yes, they still take 30% even if you already paid that much! This price was for March 2022. For some reason these ridiculous fees that AGORA GALLERY charges reminds of "The Tinder Swindler" Simon Leviev. You can watch it on Netflix. I know it's not the same, but charging that much puts them in the same category.

16. I was invited by M.A.D.S International Art Gallery to be part of an exhibit called ORIZZONTI TRASVERSALI which took place from July 28 to August 3, 2022. This exhibit was digital only with 4 viewable options: online, on screens at their 2 physical galleries in Italy, through VR oculus devices, and on the metaverse. For the short duration of this "exhibit" (only 7 days!) artists must pay 250 Euro for 1 artwork or 500 Euro for 3 artworks. This gallery seems to have invested a lot of money to be able to provide these digital exhibits so this explains their fees. So if you are willing to finance their investment at the risk of having zero sales (ORIZZONTI TRASVERSALI only lasted 7 days!) then this might be for you. Again I am not saying that this gallery or any galleries in this article are scammers, I just want to make artists aware of where their money is going if they decide to participate. Reputable galleries here in Texas only charge $25-$100 to be part of exhibits and they last a month or two not just 7 days!! All these "international" galleries are just preying on artists hoping to get "international" exposure (as if buyers in other countries have more money to spend compared to the USA, lol). By the way, this gallery also combines art with augmented reality (is that still a "thing"?) but it was not offered for this particular exhibit. Metaverse was offered but I also wonder for how long the metaverse will be a "thing" (is it already a "thing"?). Some people believe the metaverse will be something very important in the future while other people just laugh at it. I am not sure what to think of it. I believe that if they truly develop it as they are promising right now, it will have many good uses. When it comes to art it seems more annoying than useful (you have to wear those sweaty goggles!). No matter how realistic art will look in the metaverse, it will never beat seeing the real piece of art in front of you, hanging on your wall with real lighting. That's why, if you buy directly from me, you have 15 days to decide if the art is a good fit in your house (please refer to the return policy).

17. UPDATE: This gallery is an interesting case. I received a random email that looked suspicious so I didn't open it. Some time later, they tried again. This time I opened it. It had instructions to open an attachment. We all know not to open attachments from unknown senders so I didn't touch it (it could be phishing), but I said to myself "Wow, these Nigerian scammers are getting very sophisticated! This email looks legit. I wonder who else received the same email." So I did the usual copy-paste-search thinking I would find other people receiving the same email. To my surprise the sender and the firm she works for are legit. I have very little connection to the country where this firm is located so I thought "someone is stealing this lady's identity! I must inform her!" Before I made an attempt to contact her, I reread the email and I realized it was probably real but whatever they were trying to send me must be a mistake and they need to know they got the wrong person. What if it's something very important meant for somebody else? I took the risk and opened the scary attachment. No phishing, no virus infecting my computer (that I know of), just a letter. Phew!! Nothing to worry about... or should I??? The letter came from a litigation solicitor and they are asking me to remove the comment I made about this gallery because they consider it "defamatory." I believe I did nothing wrong. I am stating facts about the gallery's fees and practices and I am expressing my opinion about a matter of public interest (the art industry). This entire article was written with the purpose of protecting other artists from potentially spending large sums of money and getting nothing in return. The title is in the form of a question and it’s up to the reader to form their own opinions. Even though I was exercising my freedom of speech, I decided to remove this gallery’s name and change it to a fake one so that I could keep the actual comment. This world is a beautiful place and the least I want is negative vibes coming my way from unhappy people. I wish this gallery the best and I hope this gallery and other vanity galleries rethink their business models, get creative! Here is the original comment with the name changed to a fake one: The “Random Art Gallery” invited me to their digital exhibition. No actual art will be shown, only images on their screen at their gallery for one week, yes only one week! lol! Their prices are: £180 for 1 artwork, £360 for 3 artworks, £450 for 5 artworks!! On top of that, the gallery keeps 10% if your art sells. Yeah, 10% is not that much so again there is no motivation here to make a sale, they are already making money from the artist. I can't get over the fact that they expect artists to pay to show on a screen!! Come on!!!

If you want to know the real name of this gallery send me a message and I will privately share it with you. On the other hand, if you still want to show your art at this gallery (on their screen) because it will look good on your resume there is a simpler option which will save you money: just walk in there with your table or laptop, engage in casual art conversations with the gallery owners and customers and then show them your work! Done! You have shown your work at Random Art Gallery! You can now put it on your resume. I know, you are probably rolling your eyes but there is no much difference from what this gallery is offering.

18. THE OTHER ART FAIR has a starting price of $1850 for 4 days in Dallas (for 2023). You get a space of only 16 linear feet. If you want more space price goes up to $3650. They also have other fairs in other parts of the world for even higher fees. To this price you have to add taxes. I understand that they will have expenses for advertising, etc, but come on!! $1850 for 4 days for 16 linear feet!!!! Why? An apartment costs less than that for an entire month!!! (and you get a ton more space plus more!). Multiply those fees by the amount of artists attending. Why do they charge that much money? What exactly do they do with it?? In addition to this, if you get lucky making a sale, they take 15% commission even if the sale happened AFTER the fair. Read this from their website: "We also extend this 15% commission rate to all post-Fair orders taken within a month of the Fair closing, if the customer found you at one of our Fairs." So they already got paid for the booth and they want more??!! (leeches). Are they going to be spying on the artists for one month? Again, I want to bring the comparison of the musician. Musicians don't have to pay to be able to perform, they are the ones that get paid. Yes, we are not playing music, but we are also bringing a form of entertainment by displaying our art to the public and having chats with them. Displaying our art is visual music. We are not even asking to get paid for our "visual music performance," we will even do it for free (displaying our art), but please don't make a living off of us. Go find somebody else to take money from (sponsors, etc). Artists should only pay reasonable fees or better yet, they should only pay commission when there is a sale (no booth fee if commission is taken). That way the organizers will truly put their efforts into helping artists make sales. If they already took money from the artists, they have little interest in making a sale. There's a saying in Spanish: "Músico pagado toca mal son," which means that if you pay a musician in advance, they will play bad music (in this case the organizers are the "musicians," I know, I am using musicians for totally different examples, but you get the idea). It's up to us, artists, to stop this. People should have more respect for the visual arts.

19. I decided to add the defunct VANGO ART Gallery which I was a part of a few years ago (don't confuse it with Van Gogh Art Gallery from Madrid, Spain which I describe on #8, VANGO ART was located in the USA). It started as the good galleries where artists don't pay anything upfront, the gallery does the job of promoting your art and then the gallery gets paid when your art sells. I sold several pieces through them. Later they offered a paid membership promising to do "more" (better exposure, a personal website, reduced commission, etc, etc). I fell for it. Little did I know this gallery was drowning and this "new membership" was just a way to extract money from the artists so that they could stay afloat. A few months after I PAID THEM $390 they announced they were closing. I asked for a refund of $260 (for the remaining 8 months) and Ethan James Appleby, the CEO and founder, said he would refund me. I never saw my money. I felt so cheated. Ethan, if you come across this, I want to let you know that I am still waiting for my money. I should actually get the full $390 because you did nothing different after I paid for the membership and it did not result in any sales during those 4 months. I know it's not nice to put your full name here but I can remove it after you give me my money. Ethan is a nice guy, but I think he is one of those "entrepreneurs" that every couple of years starts a new business thanks to rich people that are willing to give their money away thinking they are doing a great "investment." If you google the name Ethan James Appleby, you will find that he describes himself as an "investor, advisor, producer, podcaster, entrepreneur, design thinker, explorer, curator, etc. " Wow and wow! He also has a ton of companies that he started and I wonder how many of those are defunct like Vango Art. It seems very popular nowadays for certain people to become "entrepreneurs" which means: living off rich people's money by pretending to start companies. I have met several people like that. I know this very nice lady whose son begged her to give him the money she had saved for his college tuition because he wanted to be an "entrepreneur." He thought college was a waste of time and money. She gave him the money. She believed her son was going to be the next Steve Jobs. She is a teacher at a public school so she did the "retire-rehire" so that she could double-dip in the system and be able to support her "entrepreneur" son. With all this money her son has been able to travel all over the world because he "has to meet with investors." I gave him the benefit of the doubt so after more than 10 years I googled his name to see what successful company (or companies) he has created. He changed his hispanic last name to something that sounds "cool" and on his linkedin he lists his education as "the internet." So far he has not created any successful companies. The guy lives in a van like a hippie somewhere in California (his mom lives in Texas, and of course, Texas is not "cool" enough for him). To be honest I feel kind of sorry for him and his mom. She had all these dreams that someday he would be famous and rich, but who knows... maybe he will meet Ethan James Appleby and he can learn from him so that instead of living off his mom's money he can find a rich "investor" willing to give money away. I know it may seem that I went off-topic, but all those galleries that I list in this article asking for money up-front are actually fake entrepreneurs. They may not be living off rich people's money but they want to make a living taking money from the artists. As I already said before, if you pay them up-front they have very little motivation to sell your art. STAY AWAY FROM THEM.

Lately I have been getting EVEN MORE INVITATIONS and I have not been updating this list as they are too many.  These people just massively send out emails to anybody that has art online. They don't really look at the art. Sorry to break this. They are lying when they say they found you and you are a great artist. I am not saying you are not good, you probably are, but the truth is they don't care if the artists are good or bad. They are just trying to catch as many fish as they can. Read these reviews from Trustpilot:

I decided to only list new invitations without description (it takes too much time!). I will only list those that I consider to be vanity galleries and vanity art festivals. I also get invitations to local festivals and those almost always have reasonable fees so I am NOT listing those. I actually do recommend local festivals. I used to do a lot of them when I lived in Houston. I haven't done any recently because I have been very fortunate selling online through the good galleries (not vanity) that I mentioned at the beginning of this article (2nd paragraph). I am also represented by a brick-and-mortar gallery in Dripping Springs, TX. I don't want to put their name here to avoid confusions (in case people are just skimming instead of reading). I can give you the name if you contact me or you can read it in the "about" section. This brick-and-mortar gallery does NOT charge artists in advance. They only take reasonable comissions when artists sell. That's how honest people do it.

Here is the list of new invitations from VANITY art galleries/festivals/catalogs/books. You can google them to learn about their fees, etc and you can decide if you agree with me.

ItsLiquid Group (already mentioned above, but I keep getting tons of emails from them)

Artavita (already mentioned above, but I keep getting tons of emails from them)

Art San Diego (part of World Wide Art Promotion and Red Wood Art Group, one of the organizers is mentioned in this article, see for yourself what a bad idea these vanity festivals are: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-world-wide-art-fair-stumbles-organizer-responds-20141022-column.html)

AGI Fine Art invited me to be part of Red Dot Miami at this point their ridiculous fees don't surprise me anymore.

VYA Art Gallery, read the comments section to learn more.

Singulart, this gallery used to be legit. I sold a few pieces through them. They decided to charge fees. They have turned themselves into a vanity gallery. It takes time and a lot of work to upload art to those websites which I don't mind doing if it will result in sales. Now Singulart will delete my account if I don't pay. I am not paying. It's sad to know that I put all this work for them and it will go down the drain. It's so disrespectful. At least they should allow the artists that are already there to keep our profile as it is for free (without adding any more works) until all the works are sold.

Opulent Art Gallery, high fees and comissions, typical vanity gallery

Capital Culture House, 740 euros to join!! (for the year 2024) Gosh!!!!!! so many vanity galleries keep popping up!! I can't keep up!! Everybody wants to take money from the artists!!!!!!!!

If you have successfully sold through any of these vanity venues, please let me know in the comments or send me a message: llanesmar@gmail.com. I will greatly appreciate it if you let us know that you have actually sold and made a profit (your sales minus the fees, commissions, shipping costs including packaging, travel expenses, your time invested, etc). Many artists that read my blog want to know which of these vanity venues actually work. I started writing about this on May, 2020 and as of today NOBODY has come to tell me if they actually made a profit. We want to know! I promise I will publish it.

What do you think? Your comments will be greatly appreciated.

This article is FREE of annoying advertising so I will really appreciate if you take a look at my paintings since you have found my website!

I found these interesting articles on the same topic:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-world-wide-art-fair-stumbles-organizer-responds-20141022-column.html

https://renee-phillips.com/vanity-galleries/

https://renee-phillips.com/is-this-another-art-scam/

https://renee-phillips.com/scams-aimed-at-artists/

https://medium.com/the-kickstarter/unmasking-the-fake-entrepreneur-16b3d55f27a4