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| Beyond the Walls by Joan K. Smith Finding a place for art outside of commercial galleries and museums |
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this article originally
appeared in the December 20, 2001 issue of the Philadelphia
City Paper. Reproduced
with permission. The crowning irony, according to artist/curators Kevin Reay and Nikki Roszko (also a CP intern) of the now-homeless Pogo gallery, formerly of South Strawberry Street, was that it wasn’t even their show. They’d arranged to periodically share their second-floor sublet space with artist Flip Hassell’s Phantom Gallery; Phantom, the endeavor known for its rotating shows in various locales around town (including everything from Hassell’s own loft to the Khyber), was holding its eighth-anniversary show in November in the Pogo space. It was this event that attracted the welcome attention from the Inquirer— and subsequent unwelcome attention from the landlord. Apparently, prior to seeing the Nov. 1 piece in the Inquirer’s magazine section the landlord hadn’t been fully aware of his tenant’s sublease of the unit’s second floor for the purpose of public art exhibitions. So as quick as you can say, "insurance liability and unauthorized use," the Phantom show was closed, and the Pogo curators found suddenly themselves having to scrap their much-anticipated December group show, "Artists Are Money," which was to have featured an impressive roster of local talent, including Virgil Marti, Eric McDade, Mark Brodzik, and Ben Woodward. On the face of it, their dilemma is emblematic of the perennial problem Philadelphia artists have in finding legitimate work and exhibition space. But more than that, the case of Pogo illustrates the power — one might even call it the tyranny — of physical location in bestowing credibility to art. It’s clear that increasing numbers of artists and curators are working outside of the mainstream commercial gallery system, often making work that is integrated within the community to the point where a traditional exhibition isn’t necessary and may even be superfluous. Take the case of the guerrilla poster campaigns by Space 1026 artists, or the wide-ranging projects of Nick Cassway and Chris Wilson’s Dissentia Curatorial Services, who, according to Cassway, founded their enterprise with the determination to "run it out of my computer and Chris’ car." Yet somehow the audience/artist/press infrastructure in Philadelphia is still slow to recognize these artistic endeavors as valid until they are given official endorsement by presentation within a tangible four-walled environment. This dynamic had been noted with some frustration by Reay, a native of Great Britain with a degree from Glasgow School of Art, and Roszko, a sculptor and writer originally from New Jersey, who only recently returned to the area after "a long journey." Neither had been particularly tied to the concept of commercial galleries as the most appropriate means of disseminating art to the public; Reay, in particular, had written an extensive academic thesis on the history of graffiti art ("the impulse to deface with an opinion has gone on forever") and felt a particular kinship with the notion of art integrated into daily culture as it is in many Eastern cultures, as opposed to the Western notion of "fetishistically putting it in museums." That said, they were both impressed by the wealth of art talent in the city that somehow wasn’t being seen in commercial galleries, and they became determined to establish a gallery venue of their own to "give these people a voice so they wouldn’t go flying off to New York or L.A.," as Roszko puts it. Immediately upon opening their first show in a tangible physical space as Pogo (which came about via that time-honored tradition: the chance barroom encounter), Reay noted a significant change in the attitude of the art community toward him: "People I’d been trying to talk to for three years suddenly listened to me." Though a welcome — and amusing — change, he found it a bit unsettling in what it said about this city’s mindset. "A lot of the stuff people are creating is so alive, and you’d think [artists] would be opposed to showing it in confined spaces. But people in Philadelphia don’t seem to accept art unless it’s in a bona fide gallery." However, neither that attitudinal shortcoming nor their current unfortunate state of transience is enough to get the Pogo team to give up on Philadelphia, a city both see as having incredible promise as an important hub for new art, especially compared with other cities they’ve lived in. Reay describes how he personally witnessed and participated in the transformation of Glasgow from a cynical, post-industrial, economically depressed city (where "most people thought art was bollocks… If you told them you were starting a gallery, they’d say, ‘Don’t be daft, go get a job’") to an international center for art, mainly through the tenacity of a core group of artists who chose to work together to carve out a niche for themselves, along with a scooperative city council. In comparison, Reay thinks it should be "10 times" easier for Philadelphia to emerge as a world-class community for cutting-edge arts, as long as the local art scene shakes off some of its complacency with the exhibition status quo and embarks upon more creative interaction. Although they have yet to pin down a venue, Pogo still plans to hold an April exhibition, "New Hormones," co-curated with artist James Rosenthal of InLiquid.com. A group show of fresh art talent, they’ve decided to stage it away from the main gallery scene, in a place where art isn’t considered likely. After all, Reay says, "Why show your work in a gallery with white walls and track lighting — eventually it’ll be in a museum and get all the fun wrung out of it, so why not make it fun now?" Reproduced courtesy of the Philadelphia City Paper Joan K. Smith is an artist, freelance writer, and
Associate Director of InLiquid.com return to InLiquid's Commentary section index ©2003 InLiquid.com; text ©2002 Joan K. Smith and the Philadelphia City Paper |
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