Independent Movement

Checking out the Gallery Guide, and realizing the gigantic amount of commercial exhibit spaces in this city, I began to ask myself a series of questions related to the diffusion and commercialization circuit in art. Are there so many artist for all these galleries? Is it the only way of distributing and covering local art? Are there even more spaces? How does the youth mobilize in such a big market, apparently very competitive? As I’d think about it more and more, new questions arose, which I have slowly began to give an answer to.

Visiting Brooklyn again, as well as some galleries, I could solve some of these mysteries, as for example that there are more spaces than I could find in the Gallery Guide, that there parallel young art circuits, emerging, organized and active, that manage to mobilize not only artist, but also the community, and they’re not just one or two, destined to die, but sufficient as to generate a circuit.

Getting to know spaces like Regina Rex, English Kills, Storefront, Microscope Gallery and Yashar Gallery helps me observe a bit of the alternative scenario, artist that are exposing their work in their own circuits, own artists, and those involved in art management work to show their work and the work of their pairs, in self administrated spaces, close to the artists’ workshops, where dialogue quickly begins to flow.

This in some way is what repeats itself in the younger generations over the world. The context here is different, sometimes the language as well, but I can observe that it’s a common scenario, a universal one. Art managers such as Laura Braslow, who works in taking art and its experience to the community, to the neighborhood, generating festivals with those who manage to gather hundreds, not only artist, but also creative neighbors with good ideas, which they take their take to create. Artists that open and close exhibition halls to show their work, people that work without economic profit.

I believe that the subject has more to do with a matter of attitude than of possibilities, of general culture regarding visual, dramatic and literary arts. From my perspective not every space I visited had good artwork, but they are all good spaces, that take their risks and bet on their work, sensible to cultural movements, active and open to dialogue and development. The community in general is involved, and that is probably one of the main differences that New York and Chile’s art world have, because art is part of daily life, though of course here is “The Art Industry” where NY figures as the official distributor, but beyond that idea it is something that also has to do with the way of life, with losing fear of culture, of new exhibitions, of new spaces. That is the attitude that is exceeding here, and that we in Chile lack and need.