Achieved Simplicity
Pure Art of Umber Studios
Umber Studios is a space whose simplicity belies an intensity of purpose, and the clarity of co-director Jessica Umber’s vision comes through in the absence, in the silence that surrounds the work.
Like the gallery itself, Umber is bright but modest, and her quiet demeanor partly masks a great intelligence. Umber Studios is a simple art space – the ground level of the building in which Umber and her partners keep their basement studios. It is, quite literally, three white walls, a hardwood floor, a mid-century sofa for sitting, and a podium for distributing the artists’ information. We met at Umber’s desk, which completes a partition between the crisp, sunlit gallery, and the cluttered back office, surrounded by sketches that were piled on a workbench and tacked to the walls.
Umber’s building, at 42nd street and 31st Avenue, is one-hundred years old, and the clean, uncluttered space that you see is the result of “blood, sweat, tears and surprisingly – barter,” she says. “It’s a relief to know the barter system is very alive and well.” The gallery shares the building with a hot dog shop that has been a neighborhood mainstay, a kettlebell studio that periodically provides “bloodcurdling screams,” and an acupuncturist. You might call it an important intersection.
Perhaps it is the very simplicity of this space – of the relation of art to wall, to neighborhood, to city – that has so sensitized Umber to art’s need for unfettered exposure. There is a clarity to the air here – the pure romance of art for art’s sake, and although there are prices that correspond to the works on the walls (published discretely in the accompanying literature on the podium), the gallery takes no commission. “We tried that and it didn’t work,” says Jessica. “It just ruined everything.” This last claim has both a youthful refusal of the realities of business and the grown woman’s experience of the cost of her own generosity. When Umber recently lent the space to people claiming to hold a fund-raiser on New Year’s Eve, the partiers trashed the place, drained the bank account on which the deposit check was drawn, and enriched themselves and not the artists who were meant to be the benefactors. “I was naïve,” says Umber.
Umber studios occasionally takes a fee from well-established artists, but since the focus is on emerging artists, that seldom happens. “When you charge a fee, it becomes a business transaction,” she says, “and that takes the heart out.” Now, she says, there is no pressure to put saleable art on the walls. Artists do what they want.
The generous spirit affords Umber a unique position, and she’s quick to point out that several shows have been important stepping stones for their artists. Ruben Nusz leapt from Umber to Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Allen Brewer’s show, after surviving the New Year’s Eve debauchery, was restored and expanded for a very successful show at the Chambers hotel downtown.
When she talks about these successes, it is clear that Umber is no purist and bears no grudge against commercial galleries nor the monetization of art practices. Also palpable, however, is her disappointment with the Walker Art Center. The institutional behemoth soaks up a lot of art funding and then “completely ignores local artists.”
While she contrasts this to Rochester Contemporary Art Center’s attitude, and praises the Minneapolis Institute of Art for its local focus, specifically its Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, one gets the sense that Umber is not interested in picking favorites or contributing her yelp to old grievances. Instead, she would rather that nothing pollute the clean air of her beautifully simple gallery.
Images:
1) Jesse Draxler, 365 Days of Drawing. Photo by Louisa Podlich.
2) Terrence Payne, Let’s Play Cops and Robbers. Oil pastel on paper. Featured in May, 2010.
3) Tom Strand, Dago and Gator. Photograph. Featured in January, 2010.
4) Allen Brewer, Untitled. Featured in December, 2009.
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