Nonprofit group invigorates Twin Cities' arts scene

Art Business News, Oct, 2003 by Doug Hanson

In 1999, a woman from Chicago walked into Kellie Rae Theiss's Minneapolis art gallery and asked where she could get a copy of a gallery guide for the area. "She was astounded when I told her there was none," said Theiss

Experiences like this one convinced Theiss that the public profile of the Twin Cities' art community needed a drastic overhaul. So the next year, together with gallery owner Shelley Holzemer, she founded the Twin Cities Fine Arts Organization (TCFAO). In just two years, the organization launched Art on the Town, an eight-day visual arts event that included coordinated activities at commercial galleries, museums and nonprofit art centers throughout the Twin Cities. The second-annual event is set to kick off this month with more than 75 participating organizations, up from 50 last year.

"We all wanted an event that would showcase the gallery and museum scene with emphasis on our individual identities," said Theiss, who is the organization's president. Non-TCFAO members are welcome to take part, and all events are free and listed in "passports" handed out to the public. At each establishment visitors can get their passports stamped; with seven stamps, they can enter a drawing for prizes.

"[Last year's event] brought just a ton of people through who hadn't been comfortable going to galleries before," said Sally Johnson, who runs Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis. "There was a way to break the ice--they had their passports in hand, ready to get stamped. Many had never been here before. And they came again." Groveland put on artist demonstrations, while other organizations had special receptions, dialogues with artists or simply featured their current shows during the event.

TCFAO has also put together a gallery guide brochure and a Web site at www.twincitiesfineart.org. Annual dues of $280 get each member a listing in the gallery guide and one page on the Web site.

This solidarity marks the second time in recent history that the Twin Cities art community has joined forces to revitalize its visual arts. The mid-1970s saw much networking among foundations, government, corporations and museums. Grants for individual artists multiplied, foundation-supported exhibition programs began at both the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center, foundations underwrote a monthly visual arts magazine (that has since disappeared), and corporations stepped up their art buying.

Throughout the '80s, the visual arts were accessible in a concentration of galleries in the Warehouse District near downtown Minneapolis. But the district's popularity led to gentrification and rising rents that put financial pressure on galleries and other low-budget art venues. In 1990, the arrival of a new sports and concert arena hastened the departure of all but a couple of galleries. Although today numerous galleries are dispersed throughout the Twin Cities, with the eclipse of the Warehouse District scene, the visual arts seemed to fall from public view.

TCFAO has not only put a face back on the visual arts, it also has focused on a vital but previously neglected component in the arts mix: the private buyer. When corporate art buying fell off in 1990, too many galleries hadn't built up a solid clientele of individual buyers and had to dose. Many gallery owners hope that by increasing awareness of the variety and quality of art in the Twin Cities, the number of art buyers will naturally increase as well.

Recent efforts also feature creative interaction between non-profit institutions and the commercial sector. Crucial to the success of Art on the Town has been the participation of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) and the Target Corporation. The MIA is a member of TCFAO, as are other museums in the community. MIA director Evan Maurer also has joined TCFAO's board and made available Institute resources to assist in its efforts. Target offered marketing, promotional and staff support for last year's event and is providing vital assistance again this year.

"In the past there has been a tendency for the not-for-profits to pull away from the for-profit sector in terms of art because they didn't want to be commercial" said Maurer. "I think we have to realize that we are all part of a national fine-arts economy. When you have more people in the community get interested in the visual arts and more who are collecting local artists, it helps everybody."

"Everybody is more aware that we need to be reaching out," said Karen Casanova of the University of Minnesota's Weisman Art Museum. This month, the Weisman is holding the WAM Expo, a dealers' fair that will showcase selected commercial galleries at the museum. The event is designed to promote the Weisman Art Mob, a new collectors group Weisman members can join to get advice on art buying, to tour artists' studios and to learn from other collectors.

Elsewhere, the Walker Art Center has joined forces with the McKnight Foundation, a private philanthropic organization, to create www.mnartists.org. This Web site features events listings and art criticism, but above all it offers 25 megabytes of free Internet space to any Minnesotan who claims to be an artist. Almost 4,000 artists now display images of their work on what amounts to a Web site version of a studio crawl.