Chelsea Gallerista: Pop-Ups and Open Houses: New Collaborations to Ride Out the Recession

Last week I found myself in a couple of small, personal Chelsea art events that signal the alternative ways art is being "done" these days - largely due to the economy.The traditional way: An established gallery in a prime location which is never open Sundays, and in fact, shuts promptly at 6pm weekdays, thus winnowing out the tire kickers. Staff, of whom you see only the very top of their heads behind the high reception desk, basically ignores you if you wander in without an appointment, because they are busy dealing in cyberspace ...The new way: slap up, pop up, anything goes. Let's look at three different "recession suppression" slants:

THE POP UP

Rodney Durso and Blair Bradshaw: Together Again Press Release

- See more at: http://chelseagallerista.blogspot.com/2010/07/pop-ups-and-open-houses-new.html#sthash.s77v3GBp.dpuf

Rodney Durso (NY) and Blair Bradshaw (SF) showed their work in a small pop-up space on 526 West 26th St orchestrated by Reaves Gallery.

As I understood it, Sharon Reaves, the gallery director, recently moved from San Francisco and is establishing her business here in this flexible and low-key manner: renting a space ad-hoc in an existing space. It makes sense - like a pop-up window on a website, you're invited in to step inside and look around, and then the window closes. Next time, a different space, a different artist, a different gallery. But the connections have been forged; the space is now irrelevant, particularly with the internet being its own defacto gallery space.Rodney Durso is a mixed-media artist who weaves a visual narrative with the things he clearly loves - architecture, design, politics, graphics, intense color, community. I met him while scarfing tiny little cookies at Three Tarts, the Oprah-favorited micro-desserterie he co-owns with his sister, Marla. We found we had a mutual background in advertising, and friended each other before there was this thing called Facebook.Now over to Blair: ever thought what fun lives those artists must have, who do the whimsical full-page magazine illustrations for articles about monkeys or oil spills or anti-depressants? Blair Bradshaw is one of those lucky peeps, a graphic artist with creds including New Scientist, the NYT and Absolut Vodka. We all postured over his diptych depicting a speed-dying version of the Burr-Hamilton Duel. From Wiki:Hamilton did fire his weapon intentionally, and he fired first. But he aimed to miss Burr, sending his ball into the tree above and behind Burr's location. In so doing, he did not withhold his shot, but he did waste it, thereby honoring his pre-duel pledge. Meanwhile, Burr, who did not know about the pledge, did know that a projectile from Hamilton's gun had whizzed past him and crashed into the tree to his rear. According to the principles of the code duello, Burr was perfectly justified in taking deadly aim at Hamilton and firing to kill....The panel features strips of stained wood neatly stamped with the death dates of both men, respectively. No, the wood was not from the tree above and behind Burr's location, but we all pretended it was ...

Rodney also founded ArtBridge, a sustainable art innovation in itself: it commissions artists to do their darndest on otherwise uninspiring scaffolding, thus transforming the streetscape into an overhead, tree-level gallery. When it's time for the art to come down, it's made into sturdy and chic tote bags which are sold at Three Tarts among other places from around $32 and up. And who couldn't do with another sturdy, chic tote bag? - See more at: http://chelseagallerista.blogspot.com/2010/07/pop-ups-and-open-houses-new.html#sthash.s77v3GBp.dpu

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