How to find calls for artists

Where artists actually look, how the main platforms compare, and how to size up a call before you pay to enter.

A call for artistsis any public invitation to submit work, for an exhibition, a residency, a grant, a fair, or a commission. The hard part isn't that there are too few; it's that they're scattered across dozens of platforms, gallery sites, arts-council pages, newsletters, and social feeds, each with its own deadlines and rules. Here's how to find the ones worth your time.

Where artists actually find calls

Most opportunities come from five kinds of source:

Submission platforms and boards. Tools organizers use to receive and jury entries: CaFÉ, EntryThingy, ShowSubmit, ArtCall, and Zapplication. Each shows only the calls hosted on it, so you end up checking several.
Opportunity marketplaces and artist networks. Sites where organizations post listings and artists build a profile. ArtConnect is the largest. Coverage is broad, but some require a paid account or sign-up to see a listing's full details.
Editorial and curated platforms.Publications like ArtRabbit hand-pick a smaller set of events and open calls and send them out by newsletter: high signal, but a narrow slice of what's open.
Primary sources. Gallery, museum, and nonprofit websites; city and state arts councils; and foundation grant pages. The most reliable place for details, but you have to know where to look.
Aggregators.Services that index across all of the above into one searchable feed. OpenCall is a free, continuously refreshed aggregator that pulls from boards, gallery sites, grant programs, and newsletters, then links each listing back to the organizer's own application page.

How to evaluate a call before you enter

Before you spend time (or a non-refundable entry fee), check five things:

Entry fee vs. what you get.Juried-show fees are commonly $20–$50; plenty of calls are free. A fee isn't a red flag on its own, but weigh it against the exposure, prize, or sales potential.
Sales commission. If work sells in the show, the organizer may keep 0–40%. A 0% commission means you keep the full sale price, a real difference on higher-priced work.
Eligibility. Confirm medium, size limits, career stage, age, and any residency or region requirement before you invest in applying.
Two dates, not one. Note both the submission deadline and the exhibition window. If you enter several shows, overlapping exhibition windows can mean the same physical piece is promised to two places at once.
Legitimacy.Be wary of vague organizers, high fees with unclear prizes, or requests for rights to your work. Verify details on the organizer's own site.

Not sure what a term means? The glossary defines entry fee, commission, prospectus, juried show, and the rest.

Using an aggregator to save time

Checking five boards plus a dozen gallery sites every week doesn't scale. An aggregator does the sweeping for you. OpenCall indexes calls for artists, residencies, grants, and fairs into one free feed, shows the fee, commission, deadline, and location on every card, and (once you sign up) scores each opportunity 0–100 against your medium, location, budget, and size limits, with the reasoning shown. It also flags exhibition-window conflicts so you never double-book a piece. Browsing is always free and every listing links straight to the organizer's application page.

Browse open calls →See the full directory