Shhh! Don't tell anyone

I hung two shows in two days this weekend. The Venezia Portfolio is up at Caffe Senso Unico at 622 Olive Way in downtown Seattle. This is the space of the old Torrefazione Italia where I showed my Paris Panoramics last year. The coffee is even better than before, now that it’s run by Mario Gelmini from the original Torrefazione in Pioneer Square. The work on display is from a visit to Venice in mid-January 2004, photographed in black and white panoramic format. The show will be up until mid-November.

The other show is the "Stick Pictures" group at Dunshee House, an AIDS/HIV community support house on Seattle’s Capitol Hill at 303 17th Avenue. It will be up until the end of December. My friend Tom is on the board, and they had a last minute cancellation (a lot of my exhibits happen that way) and wanted to know if I had a body of work ready to go.

At dinner last month Tom got on my case a bit for all the coffeeshop shows I do. "Your work is better than that," he said. Be that as it may, I haven’t have gallery representation since Edward Carter Gallery in New York closed up shop in 2002. I want the work to get seen, and until and unless I get another gallery I’m fine with coffeeshops and alternative venues. I want the work to have a life outside of my storage shelves, and I don’t feel a great need to be picky.

Last year at Photo Lucida, I had a review with a major New York gallery representative. She took a look at my exhibit list and all but sneered. "You need to list only the important ones. Don’t list the cafes. Only submit to shows with prestigious jurors," she advised. I was damaging my career by exhibiting with such promiscuous abandon.

So I guess the solution is to continue to show, but keep it a secret. I don’t want to get a reputation.

Comments

[David Adam Edelstein]

I stopped by the Venezia show yesterday. Aside from the great images -- I love the sheets hanging on the street -- I thought you'd enjoy this mental image: Under the photo of the newsstand, there was a guy sitting at that table reading through a small stack of magazines.