Radical Departure—New Models for Gallery Practice in a Changing World

RADICAL DEPARTURE – NEW MODELS FOR GALLERY PRACTICE IN A CHANGING WORLD by Jennifer Hand

Part One in a Two-Part Series

Foreword: In the midst of this global time of upheaval, cultural shifts engendered both by COVID and the latest wave of the Black Lives Matter movement have the potential to reshape the current gallery structure, leaving in its stead a more equitable system of representation. This series will examine ways that visionary gallerists are shifting the paradigm towards allyship and relevance, and how socially conscious galleries with a history of representing controversial artists have found success.

Part One: Radical Beauty – Joyce Scott and Goya Gallery, a Study in Authenticity

Joyce Scott doesn’t think of herself as a radical. She identifies as a storyteller, a performer, a progressive – and above all else, an artist who reflects the tone of her time. Nevertheless, Scott’s beadworked masterpieces speak for themselves, threaded as they are with narratives of racism, bigotry, classism and violence against women—weighty subjects rendered in a whimsical material. In the context of a medium characterized for decades as long on sparkle and short on concept, Scott’s works have been consistently provocative. She has built a career on making politically charged work since the 1970s, and for the last twenty years has been represented by Goya Gallery in her hometown of Baltimore. A collaborative partnership like theirs that allows for the development of trust can be the difference between success and obscurity for an emerging maker. Such opportunities are exceedingly rare even for the most privileged artists, and have been historically all-but-nonexistent for artists of color. Anyone familiar with Scott’s captivating personality and staggering work ethic will know that her footsteps are not ones easily followed, but it is sound strategy to study that success story for guidance in our changing world.

Goya is a gallery that is “focused on exquisitely crafted, powerful works that investigate the human condition with a ... potent, honest and inclusive microscope,“ in the words of executive director Amy Raehse. Like Scott, Raehse shies away from the designation of radical, positing instead that it is our time that is radical, and the artists she represents are just “the first to arrive with an adequate mirror.” The language that both Scott and Raehse use to describe their ethos is remarkably similar—coming back again and again to themes of close looking, of getting people to stop and examine themselves, and the idea of authenticity. Those buzzwords are everywhere these days on social media, as arts institutions are being called out with unprecedented regularity and severity for their complicity in our societal inequities. Museums, galleries and craft schools are scrambling to form diversity committees and five-year equity plans in the midst of the dire financial landscape of the pandemic. The acquisition of political art will undoubtedly see a corresponding spike in popularity, but sustaining that trajectory over the long term will require more than surface efforts. Galleries with an existing foundation of forward thinking are well placed to lead.

Transparency is another theme in both vocabularies that has layers of meaning for these times. In the countless interviews Scott has given detailing her biography and process, she speaks of the inherent beauty of glass and how it transformed her background in fibers. She manipulates these material properties to her advantage in her mixed media sculptures and installations, playing with light the way that our culture seems to want to play with history and truth. Analogously, Goya is committed to a culture of transparency in line with its membership in ethical art institutions, as well as contributions of community opportunity building and philanthropy.

With the exception of her jewelry work and pieces for specific themed holiday shows, Scott doesn’t censor the scale or content of her work for gallery versus museum settings. In fact, she attributes her success to the fact that she doesn’t put boundaries on herself when creating. “A major strength of my work is that I try not to corral myself with what I think people are going to like.” She acknowledges that her rapport with her gallery is a major part of what gives her that freedom, but also credits herself in having cultivated that relationship wisely.

“If you choose a gallery that is totally in support—in league—with you, they’re going to want to do what is best for you, because then you will create your best.” Scott firmly believes that the right gallery can sell pretty much any sincere offering from a serious artist. Every market is different, of course, and regions vary in the type, quality and quantity of work that will be able to sell. But a combination of sophisticated collectors who are aware of the trends in the field and the ability of a skilled gallerist to find the niche interest buyer perfectly suited to a work means that artists can make political, conceptual, thematically difficult work and still find a way to make a living.

There is, of course, no magical formula to guarantee finding a connection with a gallery like Goya. Scott recalls facing hardships based on both her race and her gender as she was starting her career, but persisted by making work that broke down those barriers on its own merit. Perhaps that same tenacity informs Scott’s hopeful attitude toward the direction in which the art world is moving. Technology, for instance, has made it much easier to see how galleries are choosing to represent both your work and that of peers. She has also observed that young artists are far more sophisticated than in earlier days; well-traveled and versed in professional development, they are less likely to be taken advantage of and keen to engineer new solutions. Scott points out that the contributions of young Black artists are being valued and spotlighted by the art world at the moment—both because they are making some of the best artwork on

Left: Scott’s “Head Shot” (©2008 Joyce Scott) makes a visceral impression with woven beads, glass and bullets. Photo courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art, where this piece will be on view as part of its upcoming permanent collection exhibition, “Come Together, Right Now: The Art of Gathering.”

the market, and because of the popularity of BLM and performative wokeness. The idea of black artwork being fetishized is not a new concern for Scott, but she is quick to quip that regardless of the intentions of the collectors of Black artwork, the money lands the same way in the bank account of the artist.

Though her art tackles the toughest of topics, Scott’s sense of humor and warmth glimmer through in her sculpture as well as her outlook. She sees several parallels to the profound changes of the 60s and 70s in the times we are living through. Before the 80s when global society fell under the spell of unbridled capitalism, people were challenging institutions and making artwork that questioned the state of the world. Having now lived during two periods of social upheaval, Scott maintains that Black people have done the work to reveal the systemic rot in our societies, and now it is up to white people to fix the systems of inequity that remain. “The whole world is being rocked, because no one is comfortable while this pandemic is going on,” she states. To paraphrase Scott, who has delighted in disorienting viewers with dazzling discomfort over a lifetime of exquisite artmaking: there has never been a better time to shake up the way we make a living making art.

In the next issue, we will examine how galleries are adapting to stay relevant in our changing landscape. Whether bringing art to the streets to overcome social distancing restraints, or reimagining the economic equity of representation, creative minds are carving a new path forward.

Jennifer Hand, who formerly wrote for this publication under the name Jennifer Detlefsen, is a Norfolk, Virginia based artist, mother, writer, curator and veteran.