Referring to this post, no-last-name-offered Eric wrote:
Regina. I read with interest your claim that Seattle has 10 top
galleries. In what way top? Try as I might, I can come up with only
four that even marginally live up to that description: Greg Kucera,
James Harris, Howard House and Lawrimore Project.
There are more than 10 I’d call top.
The first meaning of top is that I see every show, even the rare ones I’m not looking forward to, because I respect the dealer’s record and know the opportunity exists to be surprised. These galleries are Ambach & Rice, Greg Kucera, Howard House, James Harris, Lawrimore Project, Francine Seders, Platform and Punch.
That’s eight. Top also includes galleries that are good to great within their specialties, such as Roq La Rue for Pop Surrealism, Traver for glass, G. Gibson for photography and Martin Zambito for Northwest historical.
That’s twelve. If art cooperatives can be included as galleries, then both Crawl Space and Soil make the the list. That’s fourteen.
On a different list are Seattle’s B galleries. I don’t see every show, but I check their Web sites each month. The strongest of them is Davidson Galleries. In this group, galleries offer something I find engaging once, twice or even three times a year. (Davidson is more like six times a year.) They include Foster/White, Grover/Thurston, Catherine Person, Fetherson, Friesen, Lisa Harris, Linda Hodges, Winston Wachter and Woodside/Braseth.
There are two galleries that are also bars that show signs of turning out to be better than B-list. They are Grey and Vermillion. Joe Bar is not as good but still better than most on the B list.
There are galleries that are too new to judge but show great promise, chiefly, Ohge Ltd, adjacent to Lawrimore Project, and Cario Cairo.
If I absolutely had to come up with a top ten list, I’d add Crawl Space and Ohge Ltd to the first category and call it a day.
I remember when Foster/White was tops and Greg Kucera was a punk beginner. Things change.
Howard House……..The Thumb
Greg Kucera………..Index Finger
Lawrimore Project…Middle Finger
James Harris……….Ring Finger
Francine Seders……Pinky Finger
typo: Cairo!
otherwise, a strong list.
I’m glad to see Davidson Galleries in the mix, even if we’re tops on your “B” list. =)
To that end, I would contend that we should probably be in your “good to great within their specialties” pile, in that we’re the primary gallery in the region to handle both antique and contemporary original fine prints (i.e. woodcuts, etchings, etc.) at a significant scale. The Antique Print Department can’t always have blockbuster exhibitions—there are only so many complete sets of Goya’s Caprichos out there!—but we do manage to have strong shows on a regular basis. The real treasure, of course, lies in the extensive inventory that may be accessed all the time.
As for the contemporary printmakers who show here, I recognize the discrepancy to a certain degree as simply a matter of preference. In my experience, it seems there are contemporary artists who make prints from time to time (or have prints made for them), and then there are those odd, anachronistic artists who identify first and foremost as PRINTMAKERS, creating work that reflects a slavish devotion to the possibilities of a thoroughly arcane set of processes. While the artists in the former category might find themselves at home in your “A” list galleries, Davidson Galleries has traditionally championed those in the latter.
Although I no longer make prints, my BFA and MFA degrees are in printmaking. I am personally attracted to beautifully executed prints for a number of reasons, but I’ve heard you say yourself that you’re not really a print person. That sounds like a difference of taste, not a matter of degree of “goodness.”
Then there are those artists whom the gallery represents who aren’t printmakers at all. (I realize this is probably the group you had in mind when you wrote the post.) Even though they aren’t making prints, there is a certain devotion to materials or draughtsmanship among these artists that I believe links them to the gallery’s printmaking heart. Many of these artists would be absolutely at home in one of your “A” list galleries but they have chosen to work with Sam Davidson because they like his gallery.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. Thanks for the food for thought, as always.
Thanks for coming clean. Art at most Seattle galleries bores you. Art bores you unless it was made in the last 10 minutes and you haven’t seen it before. That leaves a lot of artists out. We need a critic who is more open-minded about art.
Punch is an artist-run co-op, too…
I know, Susanna, but they run it like a gallery. It’s not like walking into Soil or Crawl Space or Blackfish in Portland, where the vibe is artist to artist. The Punch vibe is gallery-style welcoming to the pubic, and there’s an obvious interest in sales. I’ve been at Blackfish when they seem to be discouraging sales and/or won’t look up from their book to answer questions.
Gibson for photography–but not Benham-ya gotta be shittin’ me.
Foster White may have once been tops but now it sells Chihuly’s factory made gift shop-style glass created by $12 an hour employees.
Emily. Your loyalty to your employer has clouded your judgment. You can’t think that Davidson belongs in the same class as Kucera and Abach&Rice or James Harris and Lawrimore? Davidson offers good shows between boring stuff. (Remainder deleted by editor. Stray insults will not be televised.)
Oh my god – for shame, for shame. Some people are just out to insult everything or, in some people’s opinion what little, we have. Is that so necessary?
Top ten or not or whatever, the underlying truth behind Regina’s post is an illustration of what a small abundance of good there is. Take away the ranking system and you’re still left with far more than the four galleries listed the first naysayer cited. Over 30 – thirty – galleries are listed in this post, and that still doesn’t include everything.
And Serra, have you ever sorted through the work available at Davidson? Emily’s response is more objective than you give her credit for. No one else in Seattle has what Davidson can offer. Most Seattleites never see this kind of work until they go to a museum in New York or Europe.
For a town this size, we’re incredibly blessed. And it just keeps growing, getting better and better. People should be very excited about art in Seattle, or at least glad it’s not a complete wasteland.
Serra: Obviously there is no such thing as an unbiased opinion, but it does seem to me that you did not read my comment very carefully.
What I said was that if one must make the list that has been made here, it is my contention that Davidson belongs in the category “galleries that are good to great within their specialties,” within which Regina has placed Roq La Rue, Traver, G. Gibson and Martin Zambito. If you are determined to argue a case to the contrary, it would be constructive if it focused on the degree to which the gallery effectively specializes in original fine prints since being “good to great” within that specialty is the only specific claim I have made.
I also indicated that I have a feeling Regina is basing her assessment on her level of interest (or non-interest) in the contemporary artists on the gallery’s exhibition calendar and not the larger context for these works within the gallery’s noteworthy inventory of original prints. (This is, incidentally, also what you seem to be doing.)
I absolutely did not say that Davidson is in the same “class” as the other galleries you mention. Given the difference in specialization, I find that entire avenue of discussion highly silly. (It’s a bit like saying Emerald City Guitars is a “better” musical instrument store than Petosa Accordions. Sure it is! Unless, of course, you are shopping for an accordion…)
Yeah, take that, Eric. Seattle has many more galleries that are worth it than on your small list of navel-gazing heap tops. It has far more than on Regina’s list too. Best way to find em is word o mouth. They open and by the time you hear of them, they’re gone. I don’t like Regina’s idea of B list. Who a gallery is changes with each show.
Good points, Emily. As always.
Husky Quaker: I love, love, love your clever, concise notation of each gallery’s “digital” association as if we were just fingers on a hand. Damn, that’s a funny idea.
Ellen Ann Knowles: Thanks for remembering back that far. That was an exciting time…I barely remember it myself sometimes.
I do find myself regretting that so much attention is paid to ranking the galleries here instead of paying critical attention to our artists. Still, I strongly feel that each gallery, no matter how short or long lived, creates an important thread in this complex fabric that hammocks the art scene here.
Each one attempts some reckoning of the artists and the larger context of art here. Each one champions some group of artists in favor of another. Each one provides one form of curatorship (or showmanship) over another.
Some are natural curators; others only accumulate stuff. Some discover the, as yet, unknown; others merchandise the tried and true. Some risk a major space; others do brilliantly with very little space. Some are commercially motivated; others by conviction of heart and mind. Some are respected by their artists and others only tolerated. Some lead their artists; others are led by their artists. Some lead their collectors while others follow their patrons.
When I look back on my 30+ years of looking at art galleries and show spaces here, I marvel at the diversity of it all.
From Seattle’s past, and in no particular order: Current Editions, Dootson/Calderhead, Diane Gilson, Polly Friedlander, Manolides, and/or, Cliff Michel, Lynn McAllister, Linda Cannon, Richard Hines, Esther Claypool, Roscoe Louie, Silver Image, Equivalents, Mia, Linda Farris, Fountain, Bryan Ohno, Jeffrey Wilkey, Artists Gallery, Kiku, Garde Rail, Richard Nash, Fuller/Elwood, Donald Young…the list goes on and on. I’m sure I’ll remember more and wish I had included them.
Suffice to say, that’s a rich list of individual visions and collective context. Add to it the ones I never saw, or don’t remember, factor in the present offerings, and you have a scene that has evolved significantly over the decades. I’m thankful to be a part of it.