Stealth art opening bares dealer’s strategy
May 25th, 2009, 9:32 am posted by Timothy Mangan, music critic. Rick Stein here--substituting again for the vacationing Paul Hodgins.
Who knew an art opening would be as much a chance to discover one art dealer’s winning business plan as to experience the éclat of his cadre of artists?
Late in the week, I discovered a waylaid e-vite for Crussell Fine Arts’ opening on Saturday, but couldn’t find a location listed on his website, so I emailed Jeffrey Crussell.
After swearing me to secrecy, he sent me a map—I felt like I was on a hunt for buried treasure. I will only tell you that it’s an architecturally significant building in a residential neighborhood in the central part of Orange County! Waterboarding won’t get me to reveal where it is.
The group show could have as easily been named “eclectic” instead of “éclat,” since the works of the 22 artists included media as diverse as painting, sculpture, textiles, digital art, ink drawings and photography, and styles as varied as representational, op-art, pop art, decorative art, wearable art and a wide range of abstracts.
I ran into artist David Lee, whose bold textile art I was so fond of in an @Space Gallery group show earlier this year—here he was represented by small two-toned abstract paintings. I overheard him say he’s worked for Tony Delap for so long, it must have rubbed off on him (they certainly evoke that influence). But I became too distracted by an engrossing short work of video art playing on a monitor next to him that I missed hearing more about that. The evening’s real attention magnet was his baby, toted by wife Julie Perlin Lee. (Julie is a curator at the Bowers Museum and director of @Space Gallery a block from there).
Richard Turner’s digital Diptychs offered subtle-yet-startling juxtapositions of photographic images, simultaneously cerebral and visceral. Arriving with choreographer wife Sylvia, the couple made light of their busy day—Chapman University’s (where Richard teaches) commencement, a faculty brunch in their home, and now this (after a nap).
Artist Jane Maru took the time to explain her organic approach to textile art. Her works on cotton and silk are unlike any batik you are likely to have seen before. She prefers to allow herself a spontaneity and randomness in painting the wax resist on fabric and follows no set plan or pattern and makes no sketches. Even so, I found structure and balance in her work—very little seemed arbitrary.
As for Jeffrey Crussell, there’s no doubt he has an eye for quality. After all, he also serves as executive director of the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, some of whose artists’ works are included in “éclat.”
But he also appears to have developed a successful way of utilizing private encounters between art collectors and artists that results in sales—without having a prominently located storefront gallery. Saturday’s gathering was just one of a handful organized for this group exhibition, and it suggests that his may be a model worth pursuing for art dealers in good times and bad.
Rick Stein, Executive Director, Arts Orange County
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