What were you doing 40 years ago this fall? How about 30, or even 10? Were you even born? A sizeable number of our city&#39;s galleries are marking major milestones this fall, so we took some time to ask them about the kind of impact that longetivity and leadership have had in our neighborhoods and in our arts community. A multitude of developments have affected art businesses here and around the world, but when considering the many industry shifts, Chicago dealers have similar reponses: the internet and art fairs have turned things on their head when it comes to selling art, promoting artists and reaching collectors. With the benefit of hindsight, several dealers celebrating significant anniversaries this year offered reflections on all that has changed over the decades, as well as what thankfully remains the same. -GV

Artists and art dealers are often pioneers when it comes to seeking out new neighborhoods in which to live as well as run a business. The vitality and popularity of Chicago neighborhoods today, such as River North and the West Loop, versus 10 or 20 years ago is in part thaks to dealers and artists who blazed early trails. Such geographic changes have had long-rage effects on the gallery scene that are still evident.&nbsp;

Prior to the 1980s the city&#39;s established galleries were centered around Michigan Avenue. A few stalwarts are still located there today, including Richard Gray Gallery, approaching its 50th anniversary in 2013, and R.S. Johnson Fine Art, in business for over 56 years. By the late &#39;70s a few dealers addressed a need for space that was not available along the city&#39;s main retail corridor. Zolla/Lieberman Gallery moved to 368 West Huron in 1976. In 1979 Ann and Roy Boyd moved their gallery to West Superior to the second floor above Young Hoffman Gallery, with Jack Lemmon and Landfall Press. Ann Boyd remembers, &quot;It was a ronderful time. There was hardly any activity during the day, but people who came to see us came for a purpose. We were all feeling pressure to have higher ceilings, more space for art, more elbowroom during openings. Some artists thouht we were crazy until their say the big spaces and recognized the sense of camraderie. Ou rinsurance when we started wa $1,500 a month because our agent though all of our windows would be smashed.&quot; By 1983 16 galleries had opened in what would soon be known as River North.&nbsp;

Around the same time that galleries were begining to establish Chicago&#39;s first gallery district, in 1981 a new event on the city&#39;s art calendar would forever change the art business.&nbsp;Art Exposition&nbsp;launched on Navy Pier that year, and the resulting enegery and attention bouyed Chicago&#39;s reputation as an international art center; it also added fuel to the rapid local gallery growth. By the end of &#39;80s, over 65 galleries filled River North, while more openered around the city, including in Wicker Park/Bucktown and beyond.&nbsp;

Catherine Edelman launched her namesake gallery 25 years ago after graduating from the School of the Art Institute, opening her doors two weeks before the 1987 stock market crash. An April 1989 fire that devestated River North, along with the coinciding crash of the global art market, led to widespread votality well into the early &#39;90s. Some dealers again sought larger spaces and lower rents, spurring a significant relocation to he West Loop. Edelman says, &quot;I think the idea was that we&#39;d all move, which at first seemed like a viable idea, but a lot of us decided to stay. I think that split hurt the power of the Chicago gallery scene. There never used to be a thought where else you&#39;d go opening night.&quot;&nbsp;

Art centers have continued to develop locally in all directions, such as in Pilsen and Bridgeport where distinct neighborhood personalities are evident. The ever-creative art scene now even includes pop-up galleries and installations, a timely result of a resourceful economy. Changes in the global business landscape have also aletered the way we all reach audiences beyond the ones at home. In the past 10 years, we&#39;ve come to view websites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook as critical.&nbsp;

Douglas Dawson Gallery markes 30 years at the end of this year, and Dawson points to technology as being one of the most striking differences since his early days, though he admits that new channels maynot seem as jarring to those starting out. He says, &quot;For older galleries, like ours, with an older clientele, and a long history of print, mailings, personal contact, the evolution of technology and the impetus to make it a valid tool of the business has been challenging.&quot;&nbsp;

Social networking and the web aren&#39;t the only things making the art world smaller. Roy Boyd, who founded his gallery in 1972 in Westrn Springs before moving downtown near the original site of the MCA, says that compared to 40 years ago, &quot;We all know art fairs have taken over. The scene isn&#39;t just local anymore.&quot; Dawson reiterated Boyd&#39;s point: &quot;the changes I&#39;ve seen in the art business in Chicago mirror changes nationally. When I opened in the early 1980&#39;s there was tremendous, self-sustaining energy in the art community. Today our business is predicated on participating in important art fairs. We depend on the clients we meet at those fairs who, if they do not purchase at the show, often will when they visit us in Chicago.&nbsp;

Valerie Crberry, who opened her gallery 10 years ago in the John Hancock Center, says though many see striking changes over the years, and art now reaches many via the internet, up close and in-person can&#39;t be beat: &quot;What has not changed is that the quality of experience for the casual vistor or the experience collector is never better than in the gallery itself, where the directors, staff, and artists are available to share their expertise and enthusiasm in a comfortable space. This experience endures alongside the many and now vital platforms for art viewing, such as online or at art fairs, and proves the value of a basic pleasure.&quot;&nbsp;

Running a gallery is a marathon, certainly not a sprint. Dawson says, &quot;I think the most important issue for an older gallery, as for an older individual, is how to remain vital, relevant, and able to bring energized perspectives to one&#39;s activities. Chicago is a wonderful and receptive city to explore those challenges.&quot; 10 years ago the Boyds hosted an intimate party for their 30th anniversary. &quot;This fall,&quot; Roy says, &quot;we&#39;re going to just have a group show for our 40th anniversary. We&#39;re letting our artists subit their favorite old work, or they can submit something new. We just wanted to recognize the people we&#39;ve worked so well with.&quot;

CGN profiles local Chicago galleries celebrating their anniversaries. 

2012 Gallery Milestones: Decades in the Art Business

By KEVIN NANCEIs the glass half-empty for the Chicago art scene, or half-full? It depends on whom you ask, what you focus on and how ambitious a response you propose.In the upper, unoccupied, rather lonely part of the glass, there’s the fact that the Merchandise Mart recently pulled the plug on Next Art Chicago, which it rescued so gallantly a few years ago, only to see it suffer during the recession and struggle to compete with other fairs in Basel, Miami, New York, London and elsewhere. After what they described in a parting statement as “a thorough analysis of the art fair landscape,” the Mart’s Staci Boris and Ken Tyburski bailed on Chicago like it was the Titanic, concluding that “the great majority of the art fair market in the United States has gravitated toward the coasts.”For Chicago artists and gallery owners, who increasingly feel that local collectors prefer to buy elsewhere, the recession has been hard. There’s a battle-fatigue, even a malaise, in certain precincts. “There’s still such a fantastic art scene here, so many great galleries – but an energy is missing,” says Kasia Kay of kasia kay art projects in the West Loop. “It’s really kind of sad.”In the lower, still quite fluid part of the glass, hopes are high for former Art Chicago director Tony Karman’s new fair, EXPO&nbsp;Chicago, set to debut at Navy Pier, September 20-23, 2012. “Tony’s taken the torch and is running with it at the moment,” says Linda Warren of Linda Warren Projects. “There’s a real buzz out there because he’s investing a lot of energy into it, trying to be the very top tier of art fairs in the world. If it happens, I think it’ll help bring our art scene back.”There’s some disagreement about that. Even if EXPO Chicago is&nbsp;wildly successful, gallery owner Carrie Secrist says, no city can assume that one art fair, which now has&nbsp;so much competition around the world, can revive an ailing art scene all by itself. “That’s over,” Secrist declares. “If a comeback happens, it’ll have to happen another way.”Still, there are positive signs. “As the economy has started to come back over the past few months, our business has been stronger,” the River North gallery owner Roy Boyd says. “We’ve seen some green sprouts.”And at City Hall, the new mayor’s administration appeared to be arts-friendly,so far. The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) hit the ground running earlier this year when it began organizing dozens of community meetings to gather input for the new Chicago Cultural Plan, the first time such a plan has been seriously revisited since initially launched in the 1980s. Many in the arts community are still holding out for more concrete signs of support from City Hall.Either way you look at it – half-full or half-empty – the question remains: How do we fill up that damn glass? How do we refocus attention – locally, nationally, internationally – on Chicago as an art center? How do we leverage the city’s unique character, including its vast array of cultural resources, to provide a shot in the arm to an art scene that some regard as in the doldrums?A Hail Mary approach would be to mount a major citywide event modeled, at least loosely, on Pacific Standard Time, a recently concluded series of more than 60 exhibitions in Southern California focused on Los Angeles art from 1945 to 1980. PST, as it was known, drew mostly positive reviews, brought cohesion to the city’s sprawling art scene and raised its national and international profile, enviable results, and certainly all worthy goals for any Chicago counterpart. But PST, several years in the planning, was largely organized and funded by the Getty Foundation, which contributed about $10 million. The Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, while not exactly aloof from the Chicago art scene, are not known for their deep involvement with it, at least not at the paternal level of the Getty in L.A.; certainly neither can match the Getty’s deep pockets.That isn’t to say that a Chicago-style art celebration, even one with as grand a scope as L.A.’s, couldn’t be pulled off here. “I think it could be done,” Boyd asserts. “It would take a massive effort to spearhead it, of course, and a great deal of cooperation between a number of different people and entities who don’t normally work together that closely, but it could be done.” In Boyd’s vision, major Chicago Institution, galleries, artists, collectors, art-loving philanthropists and foundations – including the MacArthur, the Pritzker and the Terra – could band together and mount a coordinated citywide event that could give Pacific Standard Time a run for its money. “Having the museums and the galleries and everyone moving together as a united font would certainly lend a focus and a power to any effort like that,” Secrist says. “That’s probably the quickest way to bring back more of a national focus to Chicago.”But how would herd all those cats? You’d need to field an all-star team with the vision of a Daniel Burnham, the networking skills of a Lois Weisberg, the fundraising prowess of a John H. Bryan and, probably, the political clout of Rahm Emaunuel.Until such a dream team surfaces, perhaps the problem would be best attacked, at least for the time being, on a smaller, more manageable scale, with an approach that is multifaceted and less monolithic. One of several possible models might be Gallery Weekend Chicago, a collaboration that began in fall 2011 between a group of local galleries (including Andrew Rafacz, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Devening Projects + Editions, Donald Young, Kavi Gupta, moniquemelcohe, Rhona Hoffman, Shane Campbell, threewalls, Tony Wight and Western Exhibitions) and local collectors to bring in out-of-towners for a “privately curated” sampling of the Chicago art and cultural scene, including gallery and museum visits, hard-to-get reservations at top restaurants and an architecture river tour.“We’ve seen a decline in what’s been going on here, but we still have incredibly thriving institutions and galleries, and so we came together last year to see how we could share that with collectors from all over the country,” Monique Meloche says. “Berlin has been doing something like this, and it’s been wildly popular there. Both New York and L.A. have tried to produce their own versions, so we thought, why not? We have such great institutions here, such great architecture, and a national culinary profile. People love to come to Chicago, so it seemed like a natural.” Last year’s event drew about 50 out-of-towners, and the group hopes to triple the attendance at this year’s follow-up, scheduled to coincide with Expo Chicago in September. (For details visit <a href="http://www.galleryweekendchicago.com">galleryweekendchicago.com</a>) “We don’t think it’ll get much larger than that, because we don’t want it to become a marathon,” Meloche says. “We want to keep it manageable for people so they can spend some quality time at these spaces.”In her opinion, in fact, the sensory overload provided by a major art fair – or a Pacific Standard Time knockoff – might not be what Chicago needs after all, at least not now. Instead of one big jolt of shock therapy to rouse us from our collective depression, maybe a series of smaller zaps would do just as well or better. “If you do a ‘Chicago Standard Time,’ maybe you’d narrow the focus too much on the art scene, and frankly I’m not sure it would draw people here like Pacific Standard Time drew people to L.A.,” Meloche says. “We need to be showcasing the whole culture of Chicago, not just the art scene – including the architecture, the world-class institutions, the restaurants, everything. I mean, when you talk to out-of-town people about coming to Chicago, their eyes light up. We just need to invite them.”

Kevin Nance talks to members of the Chicago art scene about an arts revival in 2012

An Invitation from Chicago to the World

By GINNY VAN ALYEAThere was an article in the Arts section of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/arts/design/southern-california-claims-its-place-on-the-art-world-map.html?_r=4&amp;src=me&amp;ref=arts">New York Times</a>&nbsp;on Thursday, October 13 that really made me cringe, and a lively discussion on&nbsp;Twitter&nbsp;soon followed.&nbsp; In a nutshell, the article talks about LA's recent emergence as a major international art center, and of course they discuss the city's art scene in comparison to New York today, as well as what has made New York's art world so dynamic over the decades. For me, the piece brought up all sorts of feelings and observations about Chicago.The article starts by discussing a new arts festival, Pacific Standard Time, and referencing the sprawling territory throughout southern California for galleries, museums, and art centers.&nbsp; The festival is touted as, "a statement of self-affirmation by a region that, at times, appears to feel underappreciated as a serious culture center." &nbsp;There were a lot of lines that sounded very familiar to me - if I read the article with all references to California blacked out, I might be able to read this piece as a summation of our own varied, lively arts scene in Chicago.&nbsp; I give LA credit - they've got some blockbusters going on right now that are drawing crowds (Tim Burton; the graffiti show.) And it's so sunny most of the year that "Curators talk about the difficulty of encouraging people to walk indoors for anything but a movie in a city that has glorious weather so many months of the year."&nbsp; They have some really solid artists producing work that is of the moment now - who hasn't been obsessed with Ed Ruscha during the past 10 years?&nbsp;"Indeed, Los Angeles these days has more than its share of ambitious museums, adventurous art galleries, wealthy collectors, top-notch art schools and — perhaps most important — young artists drawn here by relatively cheap rents, abundant light and an atmosphere that encourages experimentation."As I was reading the article I thought, there's something missing - they haven't acknowledged that there IS another major city in the US that has all of these things, except of course the abundant sunshine and mild weather.&nbsp; Actually, there are a lot of smaller cities and communities that have notable art scenes, but they don't get covered because they're in fly-over territory.&nbsp; Chicago has really solid artists, though less of the Hollywood vibe (fine by me) and we've always been less flash-in-the-pan. But we have great art schools and young artists. We have cheap rents. Hello, the alternative space/apartment gallery scene here is unlike anywhere else, as shown in Hyde Park Art Center's exhibition,&nbsp;Artists Run Chicago&nbsp;in 2009. We have art fairs devoted to it! We have ambitious museums - Art Institute and MCA, yes, but also Smart, Renaissance, and Block.&nbsp; Adventurous galleries (5 Chicago galleries are in the&nbsp;ADAA,&nbsp;and LA has 6, though two are related and basically have the same name.)&nbsp; We have wealthy collectors, though they also suffer from the instinct to sometimes buy in New York more often than they should, to the detriment of our local artists.&nbsp;The article goes on: “There is now enough critical mass of galleries, of places where artists meet, blogs, magazines..." Again, we have a&nbsp;long list. &nbsp;What made me throw down my paper in frustration on an otherwise quiet Thursday evening was when I got to the concluding, and damning, quote from none other than former Art Institute president Jim Cuno, who recently turned up in LA to become president of the J. Paul Getty Trust after a very sudden departure from AIC.&nbsp; I guess he left Chicago for LA for more than the weather: "Mr. Cuno said his perception was that people in Los Angeles did not really spend a lot of time worrying about what other people thought of them. “I don’t feel or hear any ‘second city’ mentality here,” said Mr. Cuno, who came from Chicago, where that kind of talk is common. “People in Los Angeles are pretty happy with their position in the world and needn’t get the confirmation from elsewhere.”So, if I lived in LA I'd be confident enough to just shrug my shoulders and move on.&nbsp; Since I'm from Chicago, I must be foolishly obsessed with what other people think.&nbsp; What's wrong with caring?&nbsp; Chicagoans get doses of 'second city mentality' with their breakfast. We're used to it,&nbsp; even if we can't overcome it. It's an old debate, and it's not going to go anywhere soon, but I think the reference was kind of a cheap shot.&nbsp; Conversely, Cuno's comment also makes everyone in LA sound kind of dippy and just inherently happy, which I'm sure isn't giving them enough credit for their own hard work.&nbsp;There are a lot of opinions out there about Mr. Cuno and his biggest Chciago project, the&nbsp;Modern Wing, which I happen to really enjoy and love.&nbsp; I have always thought that someone who could have led that project, which ultimately did garner a great deal of favorable press for Chicago in 2009, would go on to have warm feelings about our city.&nbsp; That would be 'reverse second city menality, as it made me actually think people liked us.&nbsp; I'm sure there is more to Mr. Cuno's sentiments than what comes through in the article (I hope so) and if that's the case, it's a poor job by NYT for unnecessarily pitting one city against another without a fair fight.&nbsp;Back to the Art Institute: I think that the new head of the museum is absolutley off to the right start to start looking at life after the Modern Wing. New president&nbsp;Douglas Druick&nbsp;has been a curator at AIC for decades, so he's part of the family, and he seems to be committed to keeping the museum on strong financial footing so that it can be an anchor for the city and to making sure that the curatorial schedule doesn't get too bloated.&nbsp; I hope that there are many opportunities ahead to see the museum as a cultural space that belongs to all Chicagoans and visitors. AIC can serve as a mirror to hold up to our own evolving art history, not just the world's; for instance, I'd love to get back to the time when AIC actually had exhibitions focused on Chicago artists and work being made in the city now - with a wing devoted to contemporary art NOW is the time... Such engaging programs could do our pride some good and just might even make Chicago seem almost as bright and sunny as LA.&nbsp; In our city at least people have no problem going indoors for at least 6 months of the year.Mr. Cuno's comments stung my civic pride.&nbsp; Ultimately I think Chicagoans especially value loyalty, and I put myself in that group.&nbsp; I've built up some extra defensiveness over the past 9 years of living in Chicago, since there is no shortage of opportunities to have to defend Chicago, let alone its art community, against other bigger, shinier places and to work to build its reputation as a dynamic and honest cultural home.&nbsp; I also have come to expect the same faithfulness from others who are or have been part of that same community.I look forward to everyone's comments and thoughts on the article and this post.&nbsp; If you're a writer in Chicago, I also encourage you to write your own article or posting in response to the dominant ideas about Chicago's place in the art world - on its own or in relation to LA and NYC.&nbsp; As we all know, it's a never ending battle.

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