Mixed Media A lecture on Red Dot Gallery’s student stewardship
All hands ON DeCK: red DOT Gallery’s student stewardship
Santa Fe is a city of tradition, where progress is not always welcomed if it disrupts the comfy status quo. But change happens whether we like it or not, and the international art market — in which Santa Fe is a major player — has seen tremendous transformation in the way art is bought, sold, and even looked at. Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, a staple of the Santa Fe gallery scene for the last decade, is now an entirely online operation, with a new brick-and-mortar sister gallery, Form & Concept, located in the Railyard District. The Red Dot Gallery at 826 Canyon Road — a commercial gallery operated by Santa Fe Community College’s School of Arts, Design, and Media Arts and supported by Sandy Zane — is run entirely by SFCC students as a real-world laboratory learning space. Students not only curate the exhibitions, but they also manage the finances, create and run the gallery’s online presence, develop clientele, and manage all other aspects of the business.
On Monday, Nov. 7, at 2 p.m., Zane presents “The ABCs of Arts, Business and Creativity” in Room 488 of the Santa Fe Community College Health Sciences Center (6401 Richards Ave.). Zane offers an overview of Red Dot Gallery and its benefit to a wide variety of SFCC students, reveals future plans for learning opportunities in this area, and discusses modern gallery practices — including how to attract buyers from established collectors to young but less-solvent art enthusiasts in their twenties and thirties. A similar public forum will be held on Dec. 5. Admission is free; for more information, call 505-428-1501. — Jennifer Levin