You know what I'm tired of (besides dangling prepositions); writers for "The Stranger" throwing around the word Nazi in such a casual manner.

I am not sure what a PMA is but I am fairly sure that their alleged depredations don't qualify them for membership in the National Socialist Party.

I'm sorry, danindowntown. I agree. I cut it from the coming print version of this post. (PMA=Positive mental attitude.)

PS: A dangling preposition is nothing to be ashamed of. Some of my best friends are dangling prepositions.

I have less of a problem with the Nazi reference than I do with the bizarre equivalence you've made between art and the environment. What do the two things have to do with each other at all? Your logic here seems faulty. The environment is a complex system in which every living thing has a life-or-death stake; the arts and the artistic community are important too, but in more subjective, less quantifiable/measurable ways. Also, the connective tissues within the art community operate completely differently from those in the environment; trashing the environment in one area often has a cascading and sometimes catastrophic effect. Is there some similar effect to letting this one art exhibit go forward? If so, you haven't really explained it.

You can't plug in the word "environment" for "art" and expect it to be interchangeable; hence the tortured construction "single-subject environmental tourist attraction"...what the hell does that even mean?

Please explain.

i too was shocked and a little appalled at the celebratory reaction of the new Lawrimore space as well, none of which acknowledged the plain fact that this town had lost its finest dedicated exhibition space because of waning sales. blind optimism helps nothing.

however, as previously stated a few times throughout your comments, these closures are not isolated incidents in the world of art-as-commodity (see: music and literature), and, simply put, the time of the middle-man in the art world is over. when record and book stores began rapidly closing, did galleries take notice and alter their practices accordingly? even faced with the demise of top-tier galleries closing, those who remain seem determined to go down with the ship, rather than confront change and reconsider the way things work.

a new gallery approach will arise from all of this, eventually. but the 50/50 cut of a gallery and its artists is dead, and i for one don't think it's such a terrible change.

I went to the St. James Art Court Art Show this weekend in Louisville, KY, where I saw several different artists' glass work that was absolutely stunning - like nothing I'd seen before. It had not occurred to me, before, just how backwards-looking another Chihuly installation would be.

#5-
Can you explain this please-
"a new gallery approach will arise from all of this, eventually. but the 50/50 cut of a gallery and its artists is dead, and i for one don't think it's such a terrible change."

What is next? What kind of split is coming?

It is the mayor's job to extort - um, "acquire" - as much money from the tax-subsidized art philanthropist community as possible, in the event he sells out our public park lands to private developers.

Blame council for the MOHAI deal. There's a giant sucking sound in municipal tax collection due to the steamroller Billionaires Tunnel that's absorbing all our city and county taxes for that vanity project, and somebody has to make up the gap.

#7-
truth is, i don't know. i wish i did. Storefronts Seattle (http://storefrontsseattle.wordpress.com) is a start. any time an artist or a team temporarily alters a space is another.

seems to me there will be art worth seeing in person and as such, events will be coordinated to accomodate that. perhaps artists who wish to sell their work for a living will have to take a cue from art fairs and band tours. i know several who make a killing doing the art fair circuit who do not rely on one contracted solo show a year with a gallery- a system which has never made any sense to me.

Jen,

I am tired of good, innovative places closing too. I have been complaining to anyone who will listen about Consolodated Works, Crawlspace and Howard House closing. About venues that ran out of steam - CoCA, 911, Noodleworks and others from the late 90s that have faded from my memory. The Lawrimore Project shrinkage (it must be the cold economic climate) and My Favorite - Western Bridge closing a couple years early... About innovative artists like Jennifer West and a long list of others that tried to stick it out and then ran off to LA or Boston or Philly...

Here is what I think. There are more arts organizations in this city per capita than anywhere else in the country. It is ONE of the things that makes this city great. Funding for all of these institutions is stretched beyond measure. Even when economics are not chilly, smaller institutions scrape to make ends meet... That is why when I heard about the possibility of a large Chihuly Exhibit opening at Seattle Center, I saw some hope...

I believe that the Chihuly Exhibit will bring many folks to the city that want to spend their money on art. Yes, they will also put money into staying at hotels and eating out, but from what I have seen they also will go to Western Bridge, Lawrimore Project, the Henry and buy art from local artists. Last year Hilary Clinton toured the Boat House and Elton John bought a bunch of Chihulys and then bought out several younger artists work. I realize these might be silly celebrity examples, but there are many more examples of quiet, serious arts patrons flying in from NY and doing the same.

The city needs to broaden it's base of arts supporters. I know that Seattle centered folks say that the Chihuly exhibit will only bring tourists, but what are you or Bill and Ruth True when you visit SFMOMA or P.S.1., tourists. We are all tourists when we go see art in other cities.

I talk to quite a few local artists about this prospect and without all the hype and drama, it seems to make sense when they look at it without the heated, blogarama buzz that surrounds this issue. Think about the possibilities the way Christian French wrote about them before this got so us vs. them and I think that the Chihuly exhibit makes sense at the base of the Space Needle.

I'd go on a rant about how debt-based currency is not capable of facing the issues of todays world (information society, environmental changes, age wave, global economy instabilities), and how slowing the velocity of currency fucks with everyone, especially non-profits and so-called "luxury" purchases (eg. art, travel, fancy things)... and how we need at least one alternative currency that has a higher velocity built-in to it's ruleset,... but I don't really have the time to do that right now.

But yes, because our $ currency is based around a 'scarcity' model, money is scarce (especially in a recession) and ruins art spaces.

wb and crawlspace not econ decisions, chekkk up on checking and chek something out u were other places.

I'm not really that much of a purveyor of Art, but I do think I'd like the Mayor to take a long view rather than go for the quickest cash. I'm not sure Chihuly offers a good long term plan for the city. Some of the other options seem to be better suited to making the city more exciting and more open to evolving into whatever Seattle needs later. One can only hope the current economic woes won't last forever. Maybe we shouldn't sell off important public assets out of fear.

My regard for KEXP is much higher than for Chihuly, but I just don't see how their proposal to build an expensive new studio and office building on Seattle Center's campus is better for "the arts community" than a glass museum that will pay for itself while bringing money and tourism to the city.

and youz ignore important econ ish:

for instance the hedreen has had 3 curators in 3 yrs, they don't have an acceptable operating budget or salaries ($120 a month for a basically fulltime curating job???????). maybe the real ish is that no one gives to important things and only gives to unimportant ones or ones that don't need it. people have a belief that because something like the hedreen is associated with a flush private U they've got the hookup. this is not the case.

law dog scott also mentioned that he would be devoting his new extra cash to more artist development and travel and cool stuff like that, so i dunno if lawrimore is a good example at all.

other things i thought of:

-people spend money incredibly inefficiently in power. the people who CAN spend money that is, do it in the most bizarre and art-defeating ways.
-the people who spend money efficiently are only doing that because it's try or die.
-the community is a market 1st and foremost. art is a commodity. might be other things too, but its a commodity a priori and that part of it basically can't be challenged. so the $ goes where art sells, not where art is good. this is inevitable unless "people" get better art taste and thus start sending $ to better places.

I recall the old series of bumper stickers that frequented Seattle in the 90s: "Recycle Chihuly."

nipsecret,
Why did Crawlspace close?

In the case of Western Bridge, support doesn't always mean money. I have visited WB many times during the week and I was the only one, unless I brought my own crowd.

Hankblog says Crawlspace closed because it was languishing...

"News from our friends at Crawl Space. I look forward to seeing what comes next from their members. It’s going to be exciting and I appreciate that they are actively disbanding as opposed to languishing."

I think that could mean that it wasn't getting the kind of support and interest it needed to be a vital organization. I wish they had more support.

I wish that art in Seattle had a broader base... and I am hopeful.

'write/draw a portrait of what the city would look like if the Times ran it'
Please make this happen.

Shaun, that's interesting. It's exciting to imagine what an alternate model would look like. . .

Western Bridge is in an absolutely cool building... dig that front door: You know you're going into someplace awesome when you see that giant glass door pivot open.

Lawrimore Project was in a stunning and charmingly cozy mid-sixties modern building. He thought it was so cool he put a finely-detailed line drawing of the building on his business cards.

If the old Lawrimore Project building were a house I would want to live in it.

I will miss both spaces. Thank Gawd there's still Beth Sellars's Suyama Space.

We will reiterate what others have said here...

The decision to change venues for Lawrimore Project, like what's impending for Western Bridge, like what happened to Crawl Space, was not an entirely financial one.

As others encouraged, yes, it is good to check facts on these things before going 'to print' (even if it is a self acknowledged 'rant').

Money was about a 20% concern when it came time to renew our lease on Airport. We decided not to for many reasons, but finances less so since, oddly enough, 2010 has been our most successful year to date and we could have easily foreseen being in that space for years to come. What excited us more was what this move might afford us on other cultural capital fronts.

To clarify: The new space is the gallery. It is not temporary. It is not a "way station." It is, however, just one facet of what the gallery will be doing in the coming years.

To equate the scale of any gallery with how "interesting" the work or program is strikes us as ignorant to both the time in which we live, the true power of art, and the imperative we have set out to explore in our first year of programming for the new site: "reconsidering the object and falling out of love with space."

It's good to hear you're "all eyes," but it is other organs we're really after...

Warmth,
Lawrimore Project

@Josh,

Well put.

KEXP would be awesome, but where's the financial strategy top make it float?

More pledge drives?

Please. Be real.

On the topic of Art and Money: SADA just accepted two new members, Ambach&Rice and Rovzar Gallery, to their little club. Rovzar???!!! Are you kidding me? Almost every other member of SADA has at least one museum quality artist in their stable. Not so, shiny, candy-assed, glaze-crazed Rovzar. Greg, Jim, Gail, I am ashamed of you. Some of the other members could claim ignorance, not you.

A childish temper tantrum railing against the current economic situation will not change anything. Art is part of the business world AND a reflection of our reality. Gallery owners, arts administrators and yes, the mayor, are all business people and they are faced with tough decisions involving many factors, including economic ones, every day. And you really don’t know if they are entirely economic or not. Life sucks sometimes. Sorry you dropped your ice cream cone. But the grown-ups have work to do.

This Funhouse situation has come about because of economic considerations. It has always been about economic considerations, so it makes no sense to drag unfortunate gallery closings and downsizings into what is essentially one more attempt to kill the Chihuly at the Needle project. If the whole thing isn’t about economic considerations, why not just let the Funhouse continue operating at a loss and not paying rent? We’d probably be better off that way than if the poorly thought through “Glorious KEXP/Open Platform Hybrid” went into the space and then closed in short order because, (surprise!) they don’t have enough money to run it… Or better yet, when the whole thing collapses because KEXP doesn’t have a clear picture of how the project fits into its strategic plan and Open Platform doesn’t have a strategic plan at all… then the organizations wind up bickering and splitting when KEXP finds out Open Platform is really just a bunch of loud-mouths with no idea how to run an arts organization at that level.

Normally, I wouldn’t get involved in a dialog like this. But your assertion that the arts community as a whole doesn’t support the Chihuly project has spurred me to comment. The arts community in Seattle is much bigger than you and your obvious darlings and I’m quite certain you don’t have any idea what the rest of us think – nor do you seem to care, especially. I want both you – and the mayor – to know: You don’t speak for Seattle’s arts community. You, and the Stranger, speak for your darlings, and for your own interests.

Bringing it back to money, you don’t seem to get that the “green” the Chihuly project would bring to Seattle Center is good for Seattle and good for the arts community. It may be the solution to your problem. Money is exactly what we NEED to avoid any more great galleries closing. People coming to town, getting interested in art, any art, and then visiting other galleries in town… that is a GOOD THING. (But in Seattle, it seems no good deed goes unpunished.)

We are not going to wake up tomorrow in a world where artists frolic in meadows of green (either kind), freely creating and sharing their vision with the public. I’m sorry, but we just aren’t. We live in a capitalist society. And art is business.

Oh, and FYI… When a link is forwarded, many simple social media/survey programs track all the responses as having come from the forwarder. I received an e-mail link to your obviously unbiased SLOG poll from Chihuly’s studios at about the same time you accuse them of having rigged the whole thing. To me, it sounds like they sent a link and within minutes 800 people voted in support of the project. You do the math and figure out what that means about what another segment of Seattle’s arts community, one that is no less valid than yours, supports. Don’t put up a silly poll if you can’t take the results.

Jen,

re: Lawrimore Project (and the other spaces for that matter). I understand your hesitancy towards the new gallery, and sadness about the closure of the Airport Way location, but I'm calling into question what is the true issue here and want to know more about your take on the difference between social environments inherent in exhibition spaces as opposed to simply viewing artwork.

It's been known for a long time that the guiding principle during this transition was: "Reconsidering the object and falling out of love with space." This lodestar is the result of deep consideration of all factors, and most importantly: an overall recent shifting definition of "value" and a desire to focus on what new presentation models can exist, especially when you strip away everything but the actual artwork and dialogue with the artists. Money was a contributing factor, but not the sole factor. Having tons of money (or continuing as if immune to what a majority of the nation has been dealing with) wasn't going to compel us to question what could be, and wouldn't have guaranteed a shift not taking place.

Where I find the focus is falling short is concentrating on lack of space = lack of money, end of story. Obviously things are more complex than that. If space--across the boards on a nationwide level--has dramatically lost value, why not take cue and adopt a practice that embraces this? (After all, part of a contemporary art practice is to be relevant and reflect the issues of the times.)

I'd argue rather, that Iack of space = shift in object & social use-value. This is why models like TARL are inspiring. This is why we should find excitement in the evolution of WB (as you know the successor will be good.) I admit, all consuming super-sized sexy exhibition spaces are seductive and enhance the senses, but in this post-museum-expansion era, a counterbalance is welcomed.

This brings me to the following questions: What is the difference between looking at, say, for example, Bird in Space, in a 2,500 sq ft space versus a 150 sq. ft. space? Does one viewing experience lend to a better impression of the work itself? If so, is this problematic? Do we as viewers need to understand the intricacies of encountering work imported into an exhibition space versus being created in situ?

And finally, with specificity to LP, in your mind, was space the ultimate factor contributing to the excitement behind the experimental non-commercial-leaning commerce model of the pre-existing LP?

Yoko

Those are great questions and points, Yoko.

There was something special about that giant, graceful space; it did add something to the work. I don't know if that's problematic, or any more problematic than any of the other inadvertent framings of art. The name "Lawrimore Project" creates much more of a "space" around the work than a physical space does.

Among all the gallery closings, I was most sad about the closing of LP's space. It just felt good (almost luxurious) to be there. I don't think Lawrimore Project needs to be more like TARL in order to be more of a contemporary practice. They're each useful and there's room for both.

So much to talk about -- I'm just going to add one thing in response to what you write, Yoko. I can't for the life of me get excited about the "evolution of WB" because I haven't heard of any evolution, only closure. Having heard of no successor, I really honestly don't believe that I "know" that a successor would be good.

I also agree that things aren't simple. And yet the pendulum doesn't have to swing so far. Just as expansionist seduction was a model with problems, so will be the romanticizing asceticism implied in "falling out of love with space." Calling into question the motives and outcomes is the job of anybody writing critically—it's simply a response, and a waiting-and-seeing.

Shauniqua-

You sound really interesting. We'd love to have the opportunity of speaking with you about your thoughts on how galleries work for their artists and their fair share. Feel free to drop by the gallery sometime to chat. Perhaps we both can be relieved of some ignorance.

Warmth,
Lawrimore Project