Open Calls For Art Students And Recent Graduates: Your First Exhibition After The Degree Show

Open Calls For Art Students And Recent Graduates: Your First Exhibition After The Degree Show

The degree show is over. The work is in a storage unit, the tutors are gone, and nobody tells you what happens next. Here is what happens next.

This guide is for current art students and recent graduates who want a first real exhibition credit outside the university: where to apply, what it costs, and how to turn a degree show into an exhibition history.

The gap after graduation

Most art courses end at the degree show and stop. The industry does not come to the degree show anymore, if it ever did. Graduates leave with a body of work, a student CV and no route to the next wall.

Open calls fix the gap. They do not ask for a degree (you are welcome with or without one), they do not ask for prior exhibitions, and they do not need a gallery contact. They ask for the work you just spent three years making.

Where to apply right now

Streeters Gallery runs weekend group shows built for exactly this moment. London on November 6 to 8, New York in Tribeca on November 20 to 23, and the first ever Berlin show on December 5 to 7. Friday opening night, weekend public days. Physical exhibition £120 for one work, £200 for two. Digital £45 for one. Zero commission on sales. Free to apply.

The Holy Art, the sister gallery, runs rolling open calls across nine cities including London, New York, Tokyo, Milan, Athens, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Brighton. Free to submit, physical and digital formats, over 25,000 artists exhibited.

For graduates, the digital exhibition spot is the cheapest first international credit available: no shipping, no travel, a file and £45.

Turning the degree show into a portfolio

Your degree show work is your first submission. Photograph it properly before it goes into storage: natural light, straight on, clean background, high resolution. Pick the three to five pieces that hang together most clearly. Write two honest sentences about what you make and why, in your own words, not your dissertation's.

That is a complete open call application. Send it.

Student and graduate specific advice

Do not wait to feel like a professional. The exhibition is what makes you one.

Apply to several shows. Applying is free, and a mixed exhibition history across two or three cities within a year of graduating puts you ahead of most of your cohort.

Use London or Berlin for physical work if you are in the UK or Europe, and digital spots for New York. Save Times Square for when you want a headline: the Times Square showcase puts your work on a big screen in Manhattan from a file, and it has sold out every date so far.

Bring a small work to sell. Graduates price low out of nervousness; price in the £150 to £400 range for small works and let a first time collector say yes.

Open a studio on Mostra so the people who see your work have a zero commission place to buy it, this year and every year after.

What the first credit does

Residency applications, grant applications, gallery approaches and future open calls all read exhibition history. "Group exhibition, Streeters Gallery, London, 2026" is a real line on a real CV, and it makes every application after it stronger.

The degree taught you to make the work. The first exhibition teaches you to be an artist in public. Only one of those comes with a certificate, and it is not the important one.

Frequently asked questions

Are there open calls for art students? Yes. Streeters Gallery and The Holy Art accept current students and recent graduates with no exhibition history required.

Do I need to have graduated to apply? No. Current students and artists without any degree are equally welcome.

What is the cheapest way to get a first exhibition credit? A digital exhibition spot at Streeters from £45, needing only a file.

Can I use my degree show work? Yes. It is usually the strongest, most coherent body of work a graduate has.

Will a group show credit help with residency applications? Yes. Exhibition history is read on every residency, grant and gallery application.

Apply

Streeters Gallery: London, New York, Berlin, Times Square, London billboards.

The Holy Art: nine cities, rolling open call, free to submit.

The degree show was the rehearsal. This is the opening.