For all the good that is being done elsewhere in the industry by galleries and artists committed to their craft, there are others it seems who no longer wish to be at the service of anyone who is not part of their community. The end result creates a “dialect” between the parties, and to a certain extent fosters apathy — lost is any need to convince others. This can stifle a larger recognition and a broader audience for art, making what is produced more difficult to understand and place within a specific context or idea (and also less open to criticism), and desensitizing any nagging responsibility to explain oneself and one's actions when organizing an exhibition. I find myself at the crossroads of one such instance currently unfolding here in San Diego.

There exists any number of factors that define an individual’s character or achievements — actions, for one — and other factors that don’t, which might prevent you from even hearing about them at all. Not being “in the loop”, as we say, is one example. The point I’m trying to make is that these factors I believe often depend on the shared knowledge of a specific community, a town, or even a city the size of San Diego. Often the things we know about a gallery, Quint Gallery for example, are groomed to a specific and knowledgeable audience which maintains that information up-to-date. Often, the acts of artists, their works, and the galleries that represent them appear heroic within a region, but are in fact rather standard fare compared to other enclaves that exist outside their territory.

In his essay Art & Authority the artist Vito Acconci points out that “every art-work falls under — on the part of both artist and viewer — the assumption of an atmosphere of authoritarianism. The art-work makes an appearance as if out of nowhere, as if it’s existed from all time: since you can’t put your finger on where it began, the piece presents itself to be wondered at, venerated (whether for reasons of finance or ‘culture’) — the art, in other words, is bigger than you are.” There is, I believe, an institutional authoritarianism which exists undetected by an art viewing public that can transform a gallery with very real pragmatic reasons to operate commercially into a gallery inducted into the hallowed halls of art history — bigger than you or I.

Part I


So, with a large dose of skepticism (and a masochistic tendency to cut across the grain and risk bringing what Hunter S. Thompson would call “a shit train of bad Karma” down on my head) I find it worthwhile to question — at the risk of not finding any answers — the motives behind a not-for-profit museum organizing an exhibit around a highly esteemed for-profit commercial gallery. I’m of course speaking of “Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art”, which is currently on view at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

As someone who doesn’t frequently partake of (or hasn't been entirely privy to) what I will call for now a “regional communal knowledge” — or what Peter Schjeldahl might call a common definition of celebrity, “famous for being famous” — I would like to show how that perception can be affected by a gallery’s power and reputation. The rather poor curatorial demonstration by the museum of its newfound “celebrity” (Mark Quint) whose role it was to interpret and make sense of it all, did not accomplish this very well. This essay is as much an expression of my concerns as it is an opinion about the results of this endeavor between a gallery and museum.

For the sake of full disclosure, I have not sought an interview with either Quint Gallery or the museum. This was not done in an effort to discredit them or myself but a way in which I can maintain a certain distance and a private/public conversation as well. I sent a series of questions to the Center’s curator Olivia Luther, and received answers that I thought were as committal as they could be from someone in her position. Quint’s gallery director Ben Strauss-Malcolm also received the same questions, but did not reply. The show was up: what was there to discuss except the artwork on view? Motives are more difficult to pin down.

In effect, I see part of the problem with this show as curatorial but also regional — it is the difference between looking at the exhibit with sunny San Diego glasses on and taking a more worldly view without them. I don’t want to argue the pros and cons of Mark Quint or his gallery’s accomplishments. Give credit where credit is due, as they say, and 30 years in any business is worth noting and throwing a party for. Furthermore, even if there is a hint of complacency on the part of Quint in accepting to do this show, it would have been foolish for him not to — strictly speaking from a marketing point of view. This isn’t in so much about Quint as it is a way of separating the man from the myth, so to speak, and looking at what has been put in place — a museum exhibit — to represent him and his gallery. We can only know so much about him as is given to us in the context of this show. Many informed individuals can speak of his “good eye” for art, his longevity as a gallery dealer, his commitment to his artists and his passion for art in general; this is all fine, but you can’t possibly know of all this unless you know something of the man himself, have had dealings with the gallery either professionally or personally, or have gone to see an exhibit or two in his gallery.

You might feel this is a lapse in recognizing what exists, some part of a critic’s responsibility to know all see all, but as an “outsider” and a member of a larger general public, I can only objectively evaluate what is presented to me. I ask then, what in effect is being celebrated here? It is impossible to know in the context of this exhibition that has made no attempt to trace or outline and share that history with us. It is assumed we already know the gallery’s story. It wouldn’t be too difficult to view Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art as a vanity show, as it is currently portrayed. The museum speaks of a time in history without showing how that history has changed us, our community, or its artists. Quint quoted in the North County Times prefers “to call this exhibit a survey of the last 28 years rather than a retrospective.” I myself call it “show and tell” without the telling, because there is no clear reference point to start from. There is no “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…” You see my point. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, beyond what is known (by some) and been said by others about Quint — which might be arguably enough — I ask, was there a good reason for the museum to put on a show about a series of shows?

To my knowledge, showcasing a commercially-active gallery in a museum is unprecedented. Right now, my fellow colleagues in the media from the Union-Tribune, the La Jolla Light, NPR, and the North County Times (and to some extent the show’s curator, Olivia Luther) want you to believe this is about the art on view. And this is partially true. According to the UT, 99 works from 49 artists have been assembled under one roof. Keep in mind that this is a very large and diverse group show with a subset of highs: notably an exquisite painting by Manny Farber entitled “Ingenious Zeus”, and equally ingenious and impressive works by Peter Dreher (“Tag um Tag guter Tag”) and still others such as Jay Johnson (“NRNRNA (for Louise)”) and Simon Linke (“March 2002 (Crumb)”). Robert Ginder’s “One Car Garage” is another fine and exquisite work. There are also unfortunate lows in this exhibit, embarrassingly bad painting alongside other less-than-stellar works.

Is this a memorable show, not likely? Its disjointed nature and paint-chip sampling of works blend together in an monotonous stream of one work after another. Yet it is also a fairly unique and unilateral vision of the contemporary art world by one man, representing a cross-section of tastes and styles, among many other tastes that exist in a larger and more complex art world. Quint gallery has proven itself to be a sustainable blue-chip gallery which has had the good fortune and capacity to expose major national and international artists. Italo Scanga, Mel Bochner and Rebecca Horn figure on the roster list at the Escondido show — Bochner was given a solo show in 2007 of his velvet paintings (at Quint) and Rebecca Horn figured in several group shows under the Ouint-Krichman Projects days — none of which is uncommon or unusual for a gallery of this stature.

Installation detail: bottom: Untitled (Pins), © 2004 Tara Donovan. Private Collection; top: Aster 140 T8/4100 K, © 2007 Thomas Glassford. Guss Family Collection. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.


... it is a densely packed show, almost claustrophobically so, with one exception: a room containing one work by Tara Donovan, two works by Thomas Glassford and one large painting on the wall by Icelandic artist Birgir Andresson. Captivating.
— Kevin Freitas, Art as Authority

Knowing one’s history is important, but how you communicate that history and preserve it for present and future generations is of far greater importance and, I believe, part of the role of a museum — any museum. Unfortunately, one is obliged to approach and appreciate this show under the auspices of a past that is being represented by the present (the artwork), which has been once removed from the relationship it had with the gallery before it became artwork in a museum and was simply artwork in a gallery for sale. There is a quiet assumption that you understand and know San Diego’s cultural history, and in particular one gallery. In this case, the exhibit is “good enough” for San Diego because it has been made for San Diego and that group of individuals — artists, collectors, critics, museums, galleries — that share a communal knowledge and experience of it. If you refuse to acknowledge that history or are simply unaware of it, the work still exists; however, it lacks intent and a framework – yet we still know where it came from, a gallery. Once they have been removed from that framework, the artworks survive on their own within the context of a museum that can only be seen and judged in relationship to other similar works found in other museums and in some cases who might be exhibiting the same artists. The artwork’s importance then relies on the reputation of a gallery and not itself, which has the paradoxical effect of reinforcing the gallery’s reputation by the strength of the works on view.

The strength of Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art lies then in the knowledge one possesses of its existence and history. The moment it becomes an unspoken dependency on a communal knowledge and an oral history, it then becomes (somewhat narcissistically) a reflection of tastes, likes, and dislikes of any number of southern Californian collectors who have works on loan for the show, the artists that are currently represented by Quint, and the personal vision of the gallery dealer. Once again, I’m not here to argue whether that vision was good or bad, but what it represents in the context of this show. Having a “good eye” as a gallery dealer is very different from the historicizing and iconic status a museum can bestow on an artwork. Once this happens, you cannot help but compare it to other iconic works that exist in the art world and it is there that Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art starts to break down, it may be “good enough” for San Diego but it may not be for the rest of the world. My goal then, as I’ve stated earlier, is to separate the artwork from everything else and judge it on how well it has succeeded in the context of an exhibit that I am being forced to acknowledge and look at with very tinted institutional glasses.

As an example of this, Kim MacConnel is only as important to you as your knowledge of his career, achievements, sales etc. That knowledge is regional, meaning San Diego and national at best. It is a very secular and limited knowledge which is useful only to those who have an interest — one might say a vested interest — in MacConnel’s career sustaining visibility vis a vis collectors, museums, galleries, and eventually the auction houses. It is a commodity with a specific currency as long as it remains under the patronage of a gallery. This is what galleries do. MacConnel’s new work at the Escondido show (entitled “Intermission”) gives the viewer no indication of the importance of MacConnel in the art world or in San Diego — his assumed “importance” is once again guaranteed by his association with a reputable gallery. It is impossible to look at MacConnel's work historically in the context of a show that is celebrating his gallery. Ditto for Allison Renshaw. She is also one of Quint’s stable of artists. Being a San Diego artist does not qualify her or anyone else for that matter, a spot in a museum show if we’re talking simply aesthetics, content, theme, and importance of a painting’s history. Once again, her work can be only viewed as an example of her gallery’s vision. There is nothing there to tell me why this vision or this painting is important outside of its pre-approved stature and regional appurtenance. Other artists in the exhibit play a different role as benchmarks for the gallery even though their reputations are recognized globally in the art world – Scanga, Farber, Bochner, and Horn are again examples of this.

Intermission, © 2009 Kim MacConnel. Courtesy of the artist. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido. click for larger image

In short, there is a risk that the importance of a show of this nature then, lies more with the achievements and dialogue created between a gallery dealer and his artists, the individual strengths of the artworks (not something any dealer can truly say they have had a hand in forming), and the social-networking abilities, friendships, collector and museum base, abilities, and financial wizardry to keep shows flowing in and out of the gallery and works selling. Why does a museum consider the daily activities of a gallery relevant enough to build a show around it if it’s not going to tell us why? It is a power structure that cannot be viewed let alone understood by the common layman without help. A gallery can only hope to circumvent and participate in an artist’s career as an agent, a friend perhaps, a resource, a retail store and a vehicle to a larger audience waiting in the wings. It is a symbiotic relationship that is ultimately dependent on the quality and strengths of an individual artist’s work that establishes the foundation for everything else built upon it — including galleries. An artist’s work is the sole pillar we are all attached to.

Part II - Conflict of Interest

The curatorial statement below avoids any pitfalls and conflict of interest by turning the goals of organizing a show like this into a retrospective, a slice of contemporary art, seen through the lens of one man and his gallery. In hindsight this would have been of great interest had it conclusively demonstrated its relevancy either historically, politically, or even culturally, and did not become instead, a larger annex of the gallery’s past and current artists. There is a conflict of interest here, yes? Curator Olivia Luther makes it clear that a museum’s “primary responsibility is the acquisition, care, display, and interpretation of works of art,” but you cannot interpret and condone at the same time an art movement or artist, let alone a gallery, if the work being condoned is also being sold as works of art (separately) or by extension, through other means and venues diametrically opposed to the goals of a museum. History obviously is much larger than any one movement or individual. If it is the museum’s duty is to demonstrate that art has a much broader and non-singular vision of itself, it cannot promote works of art that exist as “live” commodities. By definition museums are not galleries, and vice-versa.

“Sustainability of the art world is based on the concerted effort of a collective commonwealth of museums, galleries, auction houses and art collectors, all linked together by a common thread - the art and the artist. This exhibition, a survey of artists shown by Quint Gallery, will explore how the vision of one local gallery has contributed to the commonwealth and document the changes seen in the artistic community of San Diego, in the art world, and for each individual artist as they have found their notoriety and artistic voice.

Featuring paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings and prints, the exhibition will include work by bold and innovative artists such as Jean Lowe, Mel Bochner, Kim MacConnel, Ryan McGinness, Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson. Exhibited together, the creations of these working artists embody the vitality of the past three decades of art, and will further the public’s understanding and appreciation of our current contemporary art scene.”
— California Center for the Arts, Escondido

March 2002 (Crumb), © 2008 Simon Linke. Courtesy Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art does none of this. It embodies and reinforces the stature, the client and collector base, and reputation of these artists and their gallery. The artistic history of San Diego is deep and rich: Quint is only one part of that story. Couldn’t that story have encompassed a broader past, a titillating present, and the inclusion of an artistic community that was left out, in an attempt to trace and mold everyone’s role, place, importance, and contribution to San Diego’s artistic future? This is a curious decision which only increases suspicion of the show’s intent and purpose, does nothing to even remotely clarify the museum’s position in all of this — letting the artwork speak for itself is not enough — and makes me wonder why an even larger institution such as MCASD did not (beyond loaning works for the exhibit) entertain doing a “Quint” exhibit in its own space. I believe the answer is evident: it would have been construed as a conflict of interest. Or perhaps it reflects what the Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight considered unacceptable (my words) in another unrelated incident concerning MCASD — “the rental from a nonprofit museum to a commercial enterprise violates various professional museum standards” (all links courtesy of the Los Angeles Times and Christopher Knight). Those standards have been tainted, I believe, by the museum’s association with and support of an active commercial gallery (though according to Olivia Luther, Quint neither funded the show at CCA nor rented the works to it).

Spawned by Driscoll’s custodial night job at an oceanographic research lab…

— Wall text: Tom Driscoll “Toys” – gypsum cement and powdered pigment, 2005.
Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido

Yes, galleries loan works to museums all the time: this is nothing new, outrageous or spectacular. What is spectacular, however, is a show uniquely about a gallery that sells work full-time and has representations of that work in the exhibit on loan from collectors, the gallery itself, and its current roster of artists. The difference lies in the fact that even if a commercial gallery does loan an artwork to a major institution, there is of course the potential to gain recognition and sales for the gallery and its artist from this exposure. What it does do though, is fulfill a moral and ethical need (if you will) to satisfy an exhibit’s curatorial theme making the artwork chosen to become neutral, historically relevant and non-commercial; it becomes part of a larger picture that fleshes out an idea and a focus, instead of turning it directly on a source (like Quint) that now becomes a judge and jury of its own destiny. The museum then becomes an unofficial brand for the gallery that has now — speaking from a strictly commercial point of view — acquired an unfair advantage over its competitors in the same limited market. So how is this possible? I believe it falls under the same premise of regional versus global: a regional hierarchy (the Escondido museum) which exists side-by-side with the broader international presence and museum standard upheld, for example, by MCASD. I am not alleging that the California Center for the Arts is unethical (though it raises some questions); I am arguing instead that CCA exists and functions regionally for regional artists and their constituents, and that they therefore can be viewed more as a cultural center — a not-for-profit gallery, if you will — that is not subject to the same standards as a major museum.

It's important to note that if Quint gallery were no longer in business, all this would be a non-issue. Works would be on loan with no threat of potential sales, the curatorial theme could be expanded upon to include other entities, galleries, and collectors that do not have a direct connection to Quint or its artists, allowing for other examples and criteria as viable and credible proof of San Diego’s contemporary art history. This would ensure a broader and more comprehensive vision and position of the arts here, and would honor those who have equally worked hard to bring art and San Diego to everyone’s attention beyond its regional borders. There are many ways to honor someone’s achievements. It’s difficult to honor those achievements by endorsing a product at the same time. It is equally difficult to demonstrate that a gallery or group of artists has had an artistic impact — in this case on thirty years of contemporary art in San Diego — if no curatorial effort has been made to elicit that connection. It is, as I mentioned, hearsay: a common knowledge that not everyone is aware of, and thus may be unaware of its importance. It is a regional show for regional tastes. This, in a lot of ways, is a disappointment.

Do you want to eat his paintings?

— VTS-inspired wall text to further public reflection:
Richard Allen Morris “Yellow Book” and “Pink Archipelago” acrylic on wood, 2007
Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

As it stands now, this exhibit is just a slice of a larger pie. A hearty one certainly, but one that could have benefited many members of the art community instead of glorifying just a few. A gallery can demonstrate a dealer’s sensibility or “eye” in choosing this or that artist to exhibit, it can indicate a certain taste and direction, and it can advise and consult with its clients. A gallery chooses what they like and believe in, what they deem important for themselves and their audience, and what they want to promote and eventually sell — they are the artist’s outlet store. They do not need a museum to support or help them carry out these daily tasks. A gallery cannot in good faith forgo its primary mission of selling artwork — beyond exhibiting the best work it can find and having that selection confirmed one day by other experts in the field who might find it critically important, or socially and politically relevant — and have it transformed into something other than what it is, personal choice. To put that choice in the hands of an cultural institution whose mission is to classify, organize, and fit those works of art into a larger historical framework — the significance of this benediction cannot be lost on many — impedes a fair and just reading of what is presented for reasons and justifications beyond the scope of the gallery’s ambitions. It is, to paraphrase Schjeldahl once again, the difference between being witty and mystical. And an audience thrice removed from the constraints of a commercial venue, hoping to visit a museum to learn and be influenced by an objective and interpretive look of what art and its artists are all about, will not know or see the difference. This is a problem no museum should be confronted with, and no gallery should accept. No one can benefit from such a relationship; it can only diminish the cultural horizons of its adherents and compromise their judgment. This in the end is a loss for San Diego and the viewing public.