Given its passionate gallery directors, high-profile art schools, and strong intellectual culture, Boston seems to possess the ideal conditions in which a city could develop a bustling artistic community. However, it is in reality challenging at times to succeed as a gallery owner or artist in this city. Many of the issues that gallery directors in Boston face are symptoms of the city’s proximity to the artistic mecca of New York City. “A lot of people say, ‘I’d rather buy a piece of art from an art dealer in New York than buy one in Boston,’” Landry says. New York art galleries tend to distract prospective buyers of art in Boston from discovering artistic treasures that are a few T stops away.
According to Khaki, the allure of the New York gallery scene tends to make it more difficult for Boston art gallery owners to hold onto their artists over time. “There [are] a lot of good artists. They come here, they go to the best schools here in this town, and once they get a show, when they see it’s not selling, when they see there’s not a good review or there’s not any review in The Boston Globe or other papers in town, then they move on,” Khaki says. She is sympathetic to these artists’ concerns but as a local gallery director, this artistic brain drain poses a problem. “As an artist, I totally understand where they come from. As a gallery owner, it’s not so good for me,” Khaki says.
The lack of reviews and sales is obviously a source of frustration for artists, but many are also concerned about having their message heard by a larger audience. This challenge was one factor in artist Ian Colon’s departure from Boston. Colon, a native of Florida, came to Boston to complete a BFA. Through networking with faculty and fellow students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Colon got the opportunity to help organize and curate exhibits at a small alternative gallery space located on 57 Delle Avenue. The space was christened FiveSevenDelle, and it became a venue where avant-garde pieces and performers could find an audience. Colon enjoyed the work and Boston’s vibrant performing arts community, but over time he was not satisfied with his level of exposure. “I was putting on events and going to events where the faces of the crowd were very similar everywhere I went,” Colon says. He found the tight-knit aspect of Boston’s artistic community worked against his aspiration to challenge audiences on their perceptions of art. “There was a great community, but challenge wasn’t there because the people were going to support you no matter what,” Colon says.
Khaki agrees that the size of the Boston art community can present a challenge, but this same characteristic also yields benefits. “The only negative thing is that there’s not enough collectors. But in terms of the wonderful art schools, the community of artists—and it’s not as crazy as New York. It’s a wonderful, spacious urban city.... I really appreciate being in Boston,” Khaki says. Gallery owners in Boston must work harder to attract buyers and retain artists than their New York counterparts, but those who choose to work in Boston still appreciate its merits.
SOHO SPIN
Though the Boston art community has strengths of its own, a group of galleries, shops, and studio lofts in South Boston has taken a cue from New York’s SoHo in order to promote themselves. These businesses (including the Khaki Gallery and the Galeria Cubana) have branded themselves as SoWa, referring to the area’s location on Harrison Avenue, South of Washington Street. The SoWa Artists’ Guild works to promote its constituents and their enterprises through outreach programs and publicity events. These include First Fridays and SoWa Sundays, which attempt to draw in additional visitors to the arts district by letting visitors tour artistic spaces and meet with the people who work and display in them. The SoWa Artists Guild website promises that these events will appeal even to “first time art buyers [and] those who have never considered art before.”
Joanna Fink, director of the Alpha Gallery and the current president of the Boston Art Dealers’ Association, is very familiar with the challenges Bostonian art galleries must confront. An art historian by training, Fink comes from a family of artists and art lovers and her Newbury Street gallery is a family business originally opened by her father in 1967. In her capacity as the head of the BADA, Fink oversees many of the community activities of Bostonian galleries. She acknowledges that existing galleries in Boston are struggling and that the artistic community is fairly clustered, but she sees advantages to that insularity. “It is not as if every gallery is presenting the same thing. Therefore, by clustering together, it offers the public the opportunity to visit several galleries in one area and see each gallery in the context of the others,” Fink wrote in an email.
The Boston Art Dealers Association employs varied community outreach strategies to keep the public engaged and invested in art happenings in the city. These include gallery talks in which interested people can visit a gallery and engage in a discourse with artists and gallery proprietors, panel discussions featuring guests from community artists, and a scholarship that is awarded to young, local artists with promise.
Fink not only believes that galleries can cooperate to foster one another but also that galleries have the power to enrich the Boston community. “When someone purchases a work of art, they are setting in motion a chain of events. They are making a statement about where they stand aesthetically, they are choosing to support the artist whose work they admire, and they are supporting the gallery that recognized the merits of that artist’s work,” Fink wrote. “Galleries can keep their doors open (to all visitors, not just buyers) and artists can continue to make their art.”
—Staff writer C.E. Chiemeka Ezie can be reached at cezie@college.harvard.edu.