In Philadelphia (and Portland, and I suppose everywhere) there is the issue of the Boutique Gallery. You know the place. At least one wall devoted to rotating exhibitions, but lots of other art for sale. And craft. And clothing. And trinkets. And jewelry. It’s a cute shop to buy cute things in, but also a space for artists to display in a formal show setting. I certainly know where the white-wall “real” Galleries stand on the issue – the horror of it all! How dare these mere stores get the valuable limited attention of critics and listings! It nearly makes one lose one’s monocle. It all goes back to that dreary modern divide and stratifying of the visual arts. (Painting = the ultimate artistic achievement, craft = lowly amateur work; art made for the purity of arts sake = laudable, art for money = distasteful.) This argument is extremely irritating to me, and to a certain extent was what my thesis was about – how context determines classification and therefor “worth”. But the art world is obsessed with classifying and creating divide, and artists are seemingly obsessed with constantly breaking down the rules.
The fallacy of the whole argument is that it pretends that artists (or galleries) can live on glory alone, and art has never in history been sold before now and ought to be “above” mere commerce. I feel the Boutique Galleries are doing quite well with their pragmatic approach, as opposed to the lofty starving Galleries. But . . . that being said, Art in Bars is supposed to promote those other places where artists get their work on the walls. Gallery or not, the boutique galleries gets plenty of media attention, and being business savvy as they are, are not in want of promotion. So I sort of feel like places like Art Star or Topstitch or Mew don’t need me and I ought not cover them. I mean, golly, they have the word “gallery” right in their business name. But they are different. I know folks who won’t go to “real” galleries because they think the art and people there are pretentious, but they will buy work from a boutique.
Which brings us to last Sunday. As I walked randomly through my neighborhood (I really should get a dog with all the wandering I like to do) I remembered Darla Jackson was exhibiting at Mew. So off I went to the Italian Market. I love Darla Jackson’s work. Can’t get enough of it. I find it beautiful, serene, poignant, even in the moments of darkness that hover at the edges of many of her works. I wish I could bring them home and live with her art forever. Curse my poverty! I feel she can’t get enough promotion no matter where she exhibits (although, happily, this work is getting a lot of press.) I know Philadelphia is a notoriously difficult town to actually sell sculpture in (although I think it usually gets healthy display). So do I write about her exhibition A Miniature Ocean at Mew and pimp the opening reception this Saturday June 27th (from 5-9pm)? Is including boutiques a slippery slope to *gasp* real galleries? Should I do whatever I want, it’s my site? Well, that issue is up for debate (see the poll below.)
