Douglas Dawson Gallery photo John F auer / Slemmons photo Rod Slemmons.
Shop Talk
T rib a l P lu s
Contem porary
Douglas Dawson Gallery
400 North Morgan St.
Chicago, IL 60642
312-226-7975
douglasdawson.com
As a boy growing up in South
Dakota, Douglas Dawson in-
herited his great-grandfather’s
small local museum of Indian
artifacts, natural oddities and
“just curious things,” which he
operated through high school
and which inspired his passion
for archaeology and anthropol-
ogy. After stints as a potter’s
apprentice in Japan, a field re-
searcher in a Mayan Highland
ceramics village in Guatemala,
and a studio potter living in a
commune in Iowa, in 1982 he
opened the Douglas Dawson
Gallery© in Chicago. Today
it is a leading venue for ancient
and historical art from Africa,
Asia and the Americas.
What’s your approach to pre-
senting this work?
I modeled my ethnographic art
gallery on a contemporary art
gallery, in that we did thematic
exhibitions and had openings
and presented things in a some-
what abstracted context. A lot
of tribal art dealers fail to realize
that the engine that fuels the
market in tribal is 20th-century
aesthetics. “It looks just like
a Rothko, a Klee, a Picasso”—
that’s what you hear all the
time. So I solicited a contempo-
rary art clientele rather than
a primitive art clientele. That
worked, and has allowed the
gallery to survive for 26 years.
Are there trends in the tribal
art market?
Initially I was exclusively tex-
tiles, and as decorating with
tribal textiles went out of fash-
ion, I moved into ceramics and
sculpture. Today the gallery
is veiy catholic, in that we cover
lots of areas.
We now represent four con-
temporary artists [textile artist
Frank Connet, jeweler Kiff
©
Slemmons, who created this
mixed-media pin ©, ceramist
Michael Jones, photographer
Larry Snider] whose work has
a connection with the rest of
the gallery. Something I’m sen-
sitive to, and often annoyed
by, is the facile appropriation
of tribal into contemporary art
and craft. The people I represent
have a great understanding and
utilize their experience with
ethnographic art in their work.
What’s the appeal of tribal art
for your clients?
My clientele is overwhelmingly
over 65, well educated, with
some of the same background
I had. I know we get tired of
hearing about people who came
of age in the 1960s, but it is im-
portant when I compare them
to the people who are not com-
ing into the gallery—basically
anybody under 30. Dealers in
tribal art lament that there’s no-
body behind our current clien-
tele. Young people are not inter-
ested-partially, I think, because
they haven’t had the experiences
their parents did. Their parents
traveled a great deal in college;
they were more cosmopolitan,
less provincial, and had a great-
er knowledge of the world.
They were Peace Corps volun-
teers, hippies looking for great
hashish in Afghanistan. It was
sort of de rigueur to be inter-
ested in other cultures. What’s
sexy now is contemporary art,
and those galleries are flooded
with young people.
Are people daunted by ancient
art?
Some are. It’s my charge to
break that barrier down. We
have no labels on anything.
Some get annoyed by that, but
it relieves people of the embar-
rassment of not knowing where
Burkina Faso is, or who the
Toraja tribe is. They can experi-
ence a piece viscerally, and then
I fill in the blanks.—
J . L .
www.journal-plaza.net & www.freedowns.net
© IL / Champaign
Parkland Art Gallery
State o f the A rt 2010: National
Biennial Ceramics Invitational
Feb. 15-Mar. 30
parkland.edu/gallery
Amy Santoferraro’s
Winner
is an example of how ceramic
artists mine the cultural, politi-
cal and historical significance
of frequently dismissed mun-
dane objects.
M A / Brockton
Fuller Craft Museum
The Gould Bruner Collection
to May 9
fullercraft.org
Sculptor Leslie Gould brought
her discerning eye to building
an extensive collection repre-
senting almost all manner of
craft.
M A / Cambridge
Mobilia Gallery
Sue Aygam Kowalski
Feb. 2-23
mobilia-gallery.com
Aesthetically appealing and
functional tools made from
exotic woods and various met-
als and plastic are Kowalski’s
homage to the physical process
of creating in today’s digital
culture.
MN / Minneapolis
Textile Center
Metaphoric Fibers: Untamed
Knitting and Crochet
Mar. 5-Apr. 17
textilecentermn.org
Altered perceptions of day-
to-day realities are offered
in this juried show of stitched
abstractions.
feb/mario american craft 015
