How Much Does It Cost to Exhibit Your Art? A Complete Breakdown
Nobody in the art world likes talking about money, which is exactly why artists end up confused about what exhibiting actually costs. Here's the honest breakdown.
The Holy Art Gallery - New York July 2026
The three ways artists pay to exhibit
Whether anyone says it out loud or not, artists always pay to exhibit. The only question is how.
Commission. The traditional gallery takes 40% to 60% of every sale. Exhibit a £2,000 painting, sell it, and £800 to £1,200 goes to the gallery. This looks free upfront and is often the most expensive option of all.
Art fairs. Booth fees at major fairs run from hundreds to many thousands, before travel, shipping, insurance and accommodation. Powerful for established artists, brutal for emerging ones.
Exhibition fees. The open call model: a fixed, transparent fee to take part in a curated group show. You know the cost before you commit, and your sales are yours.
What exhibition fees look like in practice
At The Holy Art, applying is always free. If your work is selected, fees vary by city and format.
Digital exhibition, where your work is shown on gallery screens with no shipping required, starts from around £50 to £90 depending on the city. Physical exhibition, your original work on the gallery wall, ranges from around £100 to £350 for one artwork depending on the city. Every option includes curation, installation, lighting, the exhibition catalogue, and promotion to a community of more than 250,000.
Current dates and exact pricing for every city are listed at theholyart.com/open-calls.
Physical or digital: which is worth it for you?
Digital is the low-cost, zero-logistics entry point. No shipping, no framing, no customs forms. You submit your file and your work shows on screen in the gallery alongside the physical works. For international artists, it means exhibiting in Tokyo or New York without leaving your studio.
Physical is the full experience. Your original work on the wall, seen at true scale. It costs more because it involves real space, handling and installation, and it's the format collectors engage with longest.
Many artists start digital in one city, then go physical once they've seen how a show works.
The costs nobody warns you about
Shipping is the big one for physical work: sending a framed painting across borders can cost as much as the exhibition fee itself, which is why digital formats exist. Framing matters and doesn't have to be expensive, but it has to be clean. And factor your own travel only if you want to attend, attendance is never required, your work exhibits either way.
What you're actually buying
An exhibition is not just wall space. It's a line on your CV that stays there forever, professional photos of your work in a real gallery, an audience you couldn't reach alone, and the momentum that comes from being able to say "my work has shown in London, Tokyo, New York." 25,000+ artists have exhibited with us, and the ones who grow fastest treat each show as a step, not a destination.
See what's open now
Autumn season open calls are live: Paris, Athens, Tokyo, London, Milan, Amsterdam, New York, and the Times Square billboard. Free to apply, all mediums, open theme.
Apply at theholyart.com/open-calls
Where art meets the world.
