Art Scene
john engelbrecht
Times Club
L
ast summer, Pete Schulte came on board as manager and curator of the Times Club (15 S. Dubuque Street). He has since been exploring the ways that a social space, such as a coffee shop, can be activated and perceived anew through thoughtful curation and mediation. Since Pete’s first show—Gone to the Other Side, September 2010—the Times Club has hosted a new exhibition of current (or “contemporary,” if you will) artists each month, making the space a destination for vital artwork taking place in Iowa City. This month, Schulte and the Times Club will maintain this very high standard by presenting the work of Chicago-based artist Richard Rezac, whose show is slated to open on Jan. 27. I spoke with Schulte about Rezak’s work, the Times Club in general and his process of thoughtfully presenting new work in that space.
little village: What do you think of (or maybe, how do you avoid) the typical coffee-shop aesthetic?
24 January 2011 | Little Village
Pete Schulte: There are stigmas about art in coffee shops. At least maybe I had them. When I talk to people about the stigma of art in coffee shops they look at me like they don’t know what I’m talking about. I guess what I’m talking about is decoration and background. Not even that there’s anything bad with decoration necessarily, but things that are meant to be really innocuous, not get in your way, but somehow fill in the space on the walls. I wasn’t actively trying to take on the idea of art in coffee shops or anything, I was more just trying to make some sort of curatorial program that didn’t so easily slide into the background. How successful that’s been I don’t know, but I know that we’re seeing some shows around here because of the Times Club space that we haven’t seen before and that I think are pretty interesting.
lv: Have you found that that’s been a mostly positive interaction, getting artists to take on the idea of the Times Club as a serious arts space? PS: As the shows have come together, I’ve had lists of people to ask and I’ve only had one say no, and it was a very politely personalized letter rejection from a superstar in the art
world, you know, somebody who’s extremely connected at this point. But everybody else I’ve asked has said yes. I’m not saying we have a who’s who of people but there have been some people here with pretty hefty resumes. Like Richard Rezac, I think he’s as good as anything I see anywhere. For him to do this show is really thrilling.
lv: You don’t often see people who are represented in galleries in all the major cities in America doing shows upstairs in a loft/cafe in Iowa City. PS: Yes, one of the artists I was talking to, she started referring to it as a “mixed-use space.” I thought that was really good. I’ve kind of adopted that and so it is. There are things to consider. We’re not presenting things in a typical white box which, frankly, is kind of exciting. For Richard, for example, this is a whole different situation then he’s used to showing in, at least these days. And for him it’s sort of a homecoming too We’re not he presenting things because actually lived in a typical white box which, in Iowa City for a period of frankly, is kind time. I know of exciting. he has some friendships here. Richard’s wife, Julia Fish, a painter who was just in the most recent Whitney Biennial, was a visiting artist here for a period of time and Richard lived here also in