Attending Photos
On Wednesday evening, dozens of people gathered KNOWN, the co-working space in the Palladium Building at 139 Orange St. It was part of KNOWN’s Wind-Down Wednesdays, a time for people to brainstorm and unwind. But the art on the walls – like that of Daniel Ramos Monk at the Ojo de Agua – was not there by chance; this Wednesday evening was the occasion to celebrate the opening of “Assemblage”, an exhibition curated by Kim Weston of the Wábi Gallery. It turned out that the gathering of humans at KNOWN was mirrored by the exhibition itself, which Weston conceived as his own gathering of artists, and the ideas and spirit they share.
“Assemblage is a visual collection of works by artists rich in culture, spiritual movement, ancestry, storytelling, and abstract views of color, shape, and form,” explains an accompanying note to the exhibit. “These visionaries came from New Haven, New York, Chicago, Mexico and Ghana. Assemblage is a family of creatives brought together by artist and friend Kim Weston. This first exhibition examines the spiritual and utopian bonds we share.
Weston with the sculptures of Susan Clinard.
The show represents something of a soft launch for Wabi Gallery, a company Weston intends to use to foster careers in art by selling the work of established artists and providing art education and training to emerging artists. Weston bought a space to be a home for Wábi at 126 Court St., around the corner, a year and a half ago, but was “hitting stumbling blocks” to get loans and grants to complete it the way she wants, she said.
In the meantime, she graduated from KNOWN Contractors program, a free 16-week mentorship and training cohort for BIPOC-owned companies, short of KNOWN. Juan Salas-Romer, Founder and Executive Director of KNOWN, Weston said: “wants to help these businesses excel and grow, and… that’s exactly what my business has been able to do. She thanks Salas-Romer for continuing to guide her and connecting her with “this beautiful community” of like-minded people.
She got a co-working table at KNOWNended up renting an office there, and “I started hanging out there. And Juan said, ‘hey, why don’t you put art on the walls since you’re a gallery? »
The invitation made it clear to Weston that she did not have to wait for the completion of the Court Street space to begin her Wábi gallery work. By putting on a show KNOWNshe could “make things happen the way I really want them to happen. I thought, ‘get your name out there, let people know who you are…build who you are. So it became a nice pivot. And that’s what you have to do as a business, and that’s what you have to do as an artist.
Hang some art in a place like KNOWN has advantages over a typical gallery installation because KNOWN receives regular traffic of people using the space to work as well as to attend events. “Events are where people get really excited to see the art, because it’s unexpected,” Weston said. “It’s different from putting artwork in a cafe. People come here from New York, from Boston. The New Haveners are coming here. People who stay downstairs” in a rented space in AirBnB. “It’s an array of people moving through space. The resulting traffic is truly diverse. Even after opening the gallery around the corner, I will have more people walking through this space than I will in the gallery on a day-to-day basis.
“It’s a great opportunity for artists,” said Weston, an artist herself. “Every artist says, ‘how can I get my work out?’ ”
At Oi Fortin The sun also rises and Noe Jiménez Untitled.
“This exhibit is all about our spiritual themes coming together and how we share those common things,” Weston said. “How we share color, shape and form. How we share the vision of what is currently happening in culture and society, seamlessly. How we see this through our own eyes without judgment. Most artists are BIPOC or women. “It’s so important to me to get the BIPOC voice over there, because for a long time the galleries were only open to white men. Diversity matters, for art creators and for audiences; “it’s like food, being able to taste foods from different cultures. It’s something new, a different experience, and it doesn’t matter what culture you’re from. It’s being human, and it’s a wonderful thing.
While arranging the show, Weston was drawn to the artists’ individual pieces. “The pieces were more about how colors and shapes work together. They look like assemblies, like pieces that have been put together.
Kwadwo Adae’s piece is therefore composed of small circles “that work together, and it took him a long time to put his piece together… It’s about coming together,” Weston said. “You look at Susan Clinard’s pieces – they are made from manufactured parts. She shaped the face, then she found a found object and put it together. In the work of Oi Fortin, “she does engraving and superimposes paper and colors on top of each other. I think of us as artists, and that’s what we do. We superimpose culture, ideas, constant thoughts. You bring it all together all the time. Gathering all the pieces is “a coming together of this energy, and a coming together of all these great minds, and there’s something so human about it, it’s beyond art.
Kwadwo Adae, #31.
One of Weston’s pieces on the walls of KNOWN is “my very first piece that started all my work and the journey of spiritual photography that I do. I had to dig deep and separate who I am to find what makes me want to do photography, shoot powwows and figure out who I am as an indigenous woman and who I am as a black woman – who I am as a spiritual woman, a spiritual being. Why do I care about my ancestors and whether they walk with me, physically or spiritually?
Meanwhile, Weston continues to forge ahead with building his Court Street space. “I’d love to see it next year,” she said — by the Open Source festival next year, but “the earliest would be best.”
“New Haven needs a Wábi Gallery,” she continued. “He needs a gallery that pushes artists to sell their work, not just show their work.… He needs a gallery that will say, ‘Hey, this work needs to be sold, it needs to be collected, it needs to be placed in institutions – not just galleries or museums. We need someone who fights for the artists so that they receive real wages, not $25 or $35 an hour, but $125, $150 an hour and more. We deserve this. They deserve it.
Visit their respective websites to learn more about Wabi Gallery and KNOWN.
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