How to find local open exhibitions in your area

The quickest way to find local open exhibitions is to check the websites and mailing lists of the galleries nearest you, follow your regional art societies, and look at your council’s culture pages and local library noticeboards. Open exhibitions tend to run on an annual rhythm, so once you know which spaces near you hold them, you can put the dates in your diary and rarely miss one again.

An open exhibition is simply a show that selects work from an open call, so any artist can submit rather than only those a gallery already represents. That makes them unusually rich for visitors: in one room you can see established names hanging alongside people showing in public for the first time. They are also among the most welcoming shows to attend, often free or inexpensive, and rarely intimidating. The challenge is never whether good open exhibitions exist near you. It is knowing where they are listed, because they are scattered across dozens of small sources rather than one tidy calendar.

Where are local open exhibitions listed?

Local open exhibitions are most reliably listed on the websites of the galleries that host them, so start there. A directory like this one is a sensible first stop for finding the spaces near you, and once you have a shortlist of three or four venues, their own sites will tell you whether they run an annual open and when. Larger institutions publish their open-call dates well in advance. The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition is the best-known example in the country, an open show that any artist can submit to, and its dates are announced months ahead. You do not need to submit to enjoy walking the rooms.

Beyond the big names, much of the real activity happens at smaller venues: arts centres, artist-run spaces, community galleries and the exhibiting societies. Bankside Gallery in London, for instance, is home to long-running watercolour and printmaking societies that hold regular open exhibitions. Most towns have an equivalent, even if it is less famous, and these are exactly the shows worth tracking down.

How do I get on the right mailing lists?

The single most effective thing you can do is join the mailing lists of the galleries near you, because open-exhibition announcements almost always go out by email first. A gallery’s newsletter will tell you when the open call closes, when selection happens and when the show opens to the public, usually with more notice than any third-party listing. If you only do one thing after reading this, sign up to three or four local venues. It costs nothing and quietly solves the problem.

Regional art societies are the other essential subscription. Most counties and many cities have a society of artists that holds an annual open, and they tend to publicise it loudly to members and followers. Following them on social media works well here, as their feeds fill with submission reminders and private-view invitations as the show approaches. Between gallery newsletters and a handful of society accounts, you will start to see the same annual events come round predictably.

What about councils, libraries and local press?

Your local council and library are underused sources for open exhibitions, and both are worth a look. Many councils run an arts or culture section on their website that lists exhibitions in council-managed venues, including the open shows that libraries, town halls and civic galleries often host. Library noticeboards, both physical and online, carry the same information, and library staff frequently know what is coming up before it is widely advertised.

Open exhibitions reward the visitor who plans a little: once you know the annual dates, the rest is just turning up.

Local newspapers and what’s-on listings still earn their place too. Regional press tends to cover the bigger annual opens as community events, and the listings sections of local magazines collect smaller shows that never reach the national art press. Art trails and open-studio weekends, which run in many areas each year, often overlap with open exhibitions and are advertised through the same channels, so finding one tends to lead you to the others.

How can I make sure I never miss one?

The way to stop missing local open exhibitions is to treat them as recurring fixtures rather than one-off events, because nearly all of them are annual. Once you have attended a society’s open or a gallery’s summer show, note roughly when it happened and look for it again the following year. Build a short, personal calendar of the three or four opens within reach of you, then add new ones as you discover them.

It also helps to widen your definition of local. A show an hour away can be worth the trip if it is the strongest open in your region, and combining a visit with other galleries nearby makes a satisfying day out. Start with the venues closest to home, get on their lists, follow your regional societies, and within a single year you will have a clear picture of when and where the good open exhibitions near you actually happen.