Cutting Edge Art at Culver Road Armory

There’s a new art player in town.

Actually, not so new: art dealer Deborah Ronnen has quietly sold mega-$ of fine art from her home studio for years. She’s the “go-to” lady for gold-coast name prints, photographs and paintings. She has also served on boards for Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, Garth Fagan Dance and the New York State Council on the Arts. She’s sponsored shows at Memorial Art Gallery and Rochester Contemporary Art Center and made sizeable donations to Eastman Museum of Photography.

In other words, she’s got art cred the likes of few others in our little Upstate town.

Ronnen used some of that muscle to open the inaugural cultural series at the Culver Road Armory. The exhibition is cutting edge work by sculptor/artist Mark Fox and runs from September 10 through October 2, 2011.

I am told that the opening was HUGE – lots of people (everybody from a “who’s who” list of Rochester movers and shakers) and lots of sales of artwork priced from $5 to $15 thou. I was out of town and missed the gala. In fact, I haven’t seen the installation yet. And the big question: is this a one-shot deal or is Ronnen going to continue running an actual art gallery in the newly rehabbed space?

Since my return to Rochester last week, the topic of Ronnen and this art venture has surfaced in more than one conversation. One comment by a Rochester photographer – “but she doesn’t do anything for Rochester artists” – jogged my philosophical brain into motion. This is a position often repeated in Rochester aimed at nearly all our institutions from Memorial Art Gallery to Arts for Greater Rochester and ALWAYS when there are a few bucks to spend on public art, the cry goes up “don’t give the job to out-of-town people!”

In the past, I’ve wondered exactly what it all means. Do Rochester artists weigh the merit of everything so personally? Are we so insecure that we can’t stand the wider competition? Do we really want to stay so insular?

Does the art community deserve the Smug Town label along side the very same institutions/organizations we poke fun of?

Deborah Ronnen’s success in Rochester could not exist without the history we share here. She stands on the shoulders of Jackie Shulman who started Oxford Gallery nearly forty years ago, Shop One begun during the 1960s, Gallery 696… and on and on. It’s an art history that educates viewers who first ridicule, then question, then (sometimes) come to appreciate cutting edge art. I think Ronnen is aware of her heritage but I’m not always so sure that practicing artists (and sometimes, our art institutions) realize the importance of pushing boundaries. Sometimes we need an “in your face” look at what goes on in the rest of the world outside the safety of our home town.