GALLERY AT HOME
Young art impresarios turn apartments into unconventional exhibition spaces.
It took a little convincing for Lauren Kennedy to consider moving from her native Texas back to Memphis. One idea in particular served as the clincher for the Rhodes College graduate: She could open a gallery in her apartment.
“Memphis is so much more affordable. I can afford to live in a big two-bedroom by myself and use one of the bedrooms as a gallery,” said Kennedy, who accepted a job offer from Ballet Memphis in 2012.
Shortly after moving here, she established Southfork, named for the Ewing family ranch on the ’80s soap opera “Dallas,” and held her first show in November 2012 in her Midtown upstairs apartment.
“I used to go over to my grandmother’s every day after school and all summer, and we would watch ‘Dallas.’ It’s all about big hair and crazy oil money and people making terrible decisions. I have all the DVDs and have re-watched them all,” said Kennedy, 27, an
art history graduate.
So far, Kennedy has hosted seven artists, most of them from Texas, where she spent her high school years and where she worked post-college in the Dallas art scene.
Kennedy did not come up with this idea on her own.
Not only is the homegallery scene established in cities such as Dallas, New York and Chicago, but a few Memphis art lovers have dedicated rooms, even entire homes, to accommodate exhibition spaces.
Local artist Adam Farmer opened Glitch in the summer of 2013 after he purchased his twobedroom home in CooperYoung, ripped up all the carpet and cleared all of the walls to open them up to an ever-evolving installation created by the artists who show there.
There is no longer a blank space in his home.
Joel Parsons, director of Rhodes College’s Clough-Hanson Gallery and exhibitions director of the National Ornamental Metal Museum, designated the dining room in his two-bedroom Midtown apartment as Beige, a space where he showcases installations and hosts events and even dance parties in an attempt to challenge the definition of a gallery.
“We are working really hard to find a new model of what (a gallery) space can be,” said Parsons, 28. “It can be part of our lives. It can be about relationships and building communities.”
Parsons and his live-in partner, Steven McMahon, have hosted close to 10 shows in Beige, including local and out-of-town artists, group shows, dinner parties, and even a show they took to the streets.
Parsons, who earned a master’s degree in sculpture from the Art Institute of Chicago, and McMahon, a ballet dancer and choreographer for Ballet Memphis, also try to focus on the gay community of Memphis and elsewhere through their shows.
They have established a micro grant they call the Sugarbaker Milk Fund, a basket they set up at all of the Beige shows in which people can donate money for projects created by the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Kennedy, who looked to Parsons for advice during her move, collaborates with him on some shows, showcasing her artists at his gallery and inviting him to exhibit in Southfork at one time. She recognizes the importance of the dialogue these alternative spaces create.
“We talk a lot about how art can live in different spaces than the whole white cube thing,” she said. “Unless it’s going to live in a perfect pristine space forever, it’s going to have to interact with other people and places and objects. A home environment is important to that relationship, and the art has to work with everything around it.”
Many of Kennedy’s shows have spilled over into the rest of her apartment, which she encourages, so much so that she has now opened a second gallery called South 40.
“I intended to buy a huge old painting to cover this entire wall, but that never happened, so I ended up using this wall for a show for (local artist) Alex Paulus. He showed in this space while there was a show in the other space,” Kennedy said, referring to her dining room wall.
Home galleries like Southfork, South 40 and Beige allow Memphians to experience the idea of art in a new context.
“They become social affairs because t hese spaces also function outside of just the opening. I will have people over for dinner, and they get to experience the art outside of an art space,” Kennedy said.
Parsons admits his reasoning is selfish.
“It’s good for me as an artist to support my own practice and bring influences that aren’t here and wouldn’t be otherwise,” he said.
And maybe not so selfish: “It’s an opportunity for people to really connect with someone as a result of the art.”
Though the home gallery trend might be new to Memphis, the idea of avant-garde venues is not, according to Parsons.
“Memphis has a great history of alternative spaces. I see Beige as being a part of a long tradition of really dynamic amazing spaces; it’s just the latest iteration of that.”