I went to Mercer Union today and saw the RAGGA NYC exhibit. RAGGA NYC is a collective of Queer Caribbean artists and allies, as per the gallery’s site. In Toronto, they reached out to artists to help fashion the Mercer to the end of promoting space and unifying the communities of that diaspora across North America.
The art on display was as good as any I’ve seen, but what I left thinking about most was the gallery. It is an artist-run donate-what-you-can sort of place. The walls are white and tall and unremarkable in every other way.
I said to the friend I was with that it reminded me of the dance studio in the movie Black Swan.
It was empty except for the art. I like galleries like this. The ones that are not meant to be grand. The collectives that run these galleries are basically the same as the ones providing it’s emptiness with art.
I remember the Kunsthistoriche (lit. German for art history) Museum in Vienna and how different the experience of viewing art is at a place like that. Rarely do you see contemporary art in such a place.
I’m definitely not the first one to point this out but it’s still noteworthy all the same.
-Clay
Clayton Tomlinson 