Look Into the Future

Next November, Memorial Art Gallery is sponsoring a discussion on art in Rochester in the 21st Century. I’ve been invited to participate as a panelist and I need your help. I’m not particularly good at predicting the future so if readers out there have a line on this topic, will you please share that information with me? All I can really do is look at the 20th Century and try to weave together cause and effect that may prove helpful.

Undoubtedly, the single biggest influence here during the last century was Rochester Institute of Technology. When the School of American Crafts came to this campus in the 1950s, it brought an army of talented faculty and students who stayed in our community, exhibited and sold their art. The school’s fine arts, print and photography departments paired with the manufacturing technology already at work in Rochester created a marriage of art forms that gave a level of sophistication to visual arts here that few cities could match. Nearby, state colleges were booming and all added art departments. SUNY Brockport, for example, had an outstanding faculty and regularly graduated talented artists but such satellites always revolved around the RIT juggernaut.

Direct results? Shop One opened in the 1960s, one of the first fine craft shops in the U.S. Memorial Art Gallery’s annual juried exhibit had artists of the caliber of Frans Wildenhain, Wendell Castle and Albert Paley vying for entry space. Dean Johnson, head of the SAC program, taped a weekly television show on PBS in which he visited artists’ studios. He used his influence to convince area wide manufacturing and community leaders to commission and purchase art.

In the late 1970s, urban renewal was in full force in the City. The list of “bad decisions” associated with urban renewal is impressive but art influence was visible too. When the new Xerox Headquarters went up, it included a world-class art exhibition space. The Halprin-designed Manhattan Square was a coup. Architect Halprin had already designed Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. The downtown waterfront was envisioned as a pedestrian walkway with serious art spotted along its bank.

The Gannett Newspaper Headquarters was designed to include major commissions from Rochester artists and that corporation purchased and installed a serious photography collection aided by the Eastman Museum curator. The City actually conducted a competition for artists’ designed street Christmas decorations!

By the early 1980s, there were at least a dozen commercial art galleries within the City. I opened Dawson Gallery in the Southwedge in 1982 next door to Zaner Gallery and a block away from Hoppers, Wildroot and Shaheen Raquesh Sculpture Gallery. On Park Avenue, the Wilson Gallery had recently closed but Oxford and 696 were still going strong. ArtWork at Sibley’s gave salesperson Roz Goldman her entry to the community and upstairs; the Ward Gallery generously provided exhibit space for all the regional art clubs as well as the annual Scholastic Art Show. Along Main Street, Barry Merritt opened The Gallery of Contemporary Metalsmithing. George Frederick was around the corner.

Except for Oxford Gallery, every one of these is gone. A few new galleries have opened; just as many have closed. Why? What’s made the difference?

I think the biggest catalyst was RIT’s withdrawal from the City both literally and figuratively. The new campus built on the outskirts of Henrietta removed students and faculty from any commitment or interaction with city life. It took some years to filter down but the change is nearly complete and now with a commercial “campus town” being erected, the disconnect is even more obvious.

Broader economic trends must be factored into the equation and Rochester’s economic health has steadily eroded over the past thirty years or more. Hardly any retail exists downtown and few corporations are expanding and building new art filled headquarters. Even when they are financially healthy, these companies emphasize social investment rather than cultural investment. No wonder! The demands of an expanding poor population with all the inherent problems are swamping our city, county and state.

Art, especially public art, became a political liability during the conservative upsurge of the last decade of the 20th century. This community has not recovered and may never on any appreciative scale.

Finally, young professionals are not staying in Upstate New York and their migration to hotter markets extends to the arts as well as other fields.

So my analysis: Rochester may limp along but will probably not be anything but artistically lukewarm for the foreseeable future. I hope somebody will argue against my premise. I’d like nothing more than to be persuaded that my insight is wrong.