It is refreshing to finally see some mention of non-gallery art exhibitions in the Austin American Statesman (as of whenever the “Art in Odd Places” listings started aprearing). That such shows have until so recently been omitted, and the fact that instead only exhibitions in traditional art galleries have been included is symptomatic of an unfortunate conservatism in the thinking about exhibiting art in this city that stands in the way of a real, thriving art scene. I moved here in 1993 with the expectation that, given Austin's bohemian/artistic roots and lifestyle and the explosive growth it is currently "enjoying", this would soon be a first-class town in which be an artist. What I've come to realize in the meantime is that artists and other concerned parties need to take active responsibility for that development by tailoring their exhibition strategies toward that end. I have spent the better part of the last ten years making pictures and then trying to show them to people, first in Dallas and Denton, mostly in clubs and record stores, and after that at graduate school in Philadelphia, where I got to hang my thesis exhibiton in the school's premiere gallery, a first-rate, Robert Venturi-designed,gen-u-ine downtown Art Gallery.

When I moved to Austin after graduation, my first order of business was to look for a comparable space in which to show the work here. I had the idea that the more established and successful an artist became, the more closely the spaces one's work appeared in resembled formal galleries that didn't serve food or sell records. I found barely a handful(which realistically dwindled to a mere few upon accepting that I am in fact, tragically, a white male). I was disappointed to learn that besides being booked solid for years to come,mostly with the work of UT faculty, these few galleries served more as salehouses for art objects than as exhibition venues. I finally found a suitable space in the West Third Street Gallery. Its only drawback also turned out to be its most attractive feature : it was available to me only as a rental space. But while I had always ranked paying to show even below showing in restaurants, it did offer the freedom to stage an exhibition with no pressure to comprimise the integrity of the show in order to sell the work to satisfy the financial agenda of my hosts.

The show went off beautifully. I was more pleased than with the original show in Philadelphia, except for one thing : NOBODY SAW IT! My friends came. My parents came. A few people who worked down the block came. But for the most part,it might as well have taken place at the bottom of Lake Travis. I would like to attribute the lack of attendance to the gallery's location (tucked away by the railroad tracks around the corner behind Electric Lounge), but a realistic assessment tells us that even Lyons-Matrix, Galeria sin Fronteras, and Women and Their Work, all situated on prominent streets in a busy section of town,are ABSOLUTELY EMPTY EVERY TIME YOU DRIVE BY THEM(try it some time).

In fact, this was the perfect opportunity for me to embrace some notions about the current state of affairs regarding art exhibition, particularly the declining role of the commercial art gallery as a vital outlet for the artist's profession (at least any place other than New York). I have long been interested in "alternative" exhibition spaces and strategies, but always with an eye towards the gallery as the final destination. I now decided to experiment further with more public, but less art-prestigious, venues, and I must say that I am quite pleased with the results.

The first opportunity, at the Dobie Theatre in the fall of 1994, was a complete success (except, of course, for the painting that was stolen -- lack of security is a trade-off that I’m still grappling with). That summer I had completed a body of work that was very narrative, even cinematic, in scale and structure, and that co-incidentally fit the walls in the Dobie's lobby perfectly. I heard from a number of people (including total strangers for a change) who enjoyed the work, building a foundation for an audience in the future. The next step was to organize a broader, more systematic exhibition in a number of cafes.

My first choice of venues was Mojo's. I planned to show the same work there that I showed at the West Third Street Gallery because Mojo's, with its big well-lit white walls, most closely resmebles a standard gallery, and it would both lend that body of work the proper atmosphere and allow a comparison between the two shows. Next came Flightpath and Quackenbush's,because of their high visibility and art-friendly configurations (I like to hang paintings on opposing walls, placing the viewer in the "crossfire" between them). Magnolia, with its clutter of menus and neon, and Kerbey Lane, with its tiny hanging spaces and obtrusive wallpaper, were out. That is not to say that these locations could not house successful exhibitions. Kerbey Lane, in particular, does a good job with small, framed photographs. But the work I was looking to hang would not have fit comfortably in such spaces (and it is the absence of such selectivity that often places the right work on the wrong walls, so to speak, and contributes to the perception of cafe shows as less than professional). Two more spaces, the Hyde Park Bakery and Starseeds, fillled the bill. Hyde Park,while a slightly awkward exhibition space, was appropriate to a particular group of paintings I had done of a friend when she lived in that neighborhood. Starseeds posed many of the "typical" cafe problems I once aspired to rise above (seemingly cramped wall space, less than ideal lighting, difficult viewing circumstances, etc.), but it was well-trafficked, and the people were nice, so I went with it.

The result was a sprawling exhibition with which I had complete editorial freedom, comprised of over 30 paintings grouped and hung to my satisfaction in five very high-traffic locations inhabited by the same thoughtful, responsive audiences I sought but did not find in galleries. It is safe to say that more people saw my work at Mojo's on any given day last fall than saw the same work during its entire two-week run at the West Third Street Gallery.I made a modest number of sales(of which,I might add, the cafe owners took an infinitely smaller cut than the galleries ever could or would), but more importantly, I feel like I've reached a receptive audience and contributed something to the general cultural millieu of the city (which is about as much as an artist could ever ask for).

But one thing stil bothered me. It struck me as odd that a single artist could hold such an extensive exhibition in such public locations and not get mentioned in the "Art Listings" section of the only major daily newspaper in a city that prides itself on its support for its artists.This shouldn't have surprised me, given my own change of heart concerning galleries. But I really have come to believe that only way any art can become a vital part of the cultural life of a given community is by connecting with an audience (a recent New York Times Op/Ed piece on the art of Nationally Endowed artists becoming increasingly estranged from audiences,thus endangering cultural funding at the federal level, suggests that the problem of artists foregoing audiences in the name of prestige is not limited to Austin). And since the audiences, as well as ample opportunities for artists to play to them,exist in Austin's cafes, I believe that the time is right for the art community to take cafes seriously as art venues.

Cafes hold such little prestige in relation to galleries for a number of reasons, some valid,others not. The quality of the spaces and the work involved varies wildly, and this inconsistency is often taken in itself to be a flaw of the cafes as venues. Certainly, there are artists who could stand to produce better work.We ALL need to get better. But the more experienced or sophisticated artists who A) produce superior quality work in the first place, and B) know how to present it with a sense of professional showmanship and curatorial cunning,shouldn't forego an audience just because the artists, mired in traditional art world snobbery, won't allow themselves to cross (or better, to ignore) the line between the popular and the elitist. By embracing the cafes, they could help raise the level of work being shown, as well as raise the public's appreciation and expectations of contempoary, locally produced art. Also,the owners and managers of cafes, while their intentions and enthusiasm are unquestionably in the right place, are not always trained, experienced curators. Some amount of refined skill in organizing and hanging exhibitions is required to successfully maneuver artwork into spaces that vary from large to small, from symmetrical to catacombed, from austere to cluttered, from dingy rat-holes to well-lit spaces suggestive of malls, with decor ranging from industrial to cafeteria to rummage-sale. Most galleries look pretty much the same, and it is understandable but regrettable that many artists reared in formal art circles would prefer the safety and sameness of the galleries to the challenge of diversity and specificity and audience engagement in the cafes. I was certainly skeptical, but I 've proven to myself that in cafes, paintings can hang with dignity and can even retain some sense of thematic integration (which seems only to be enhanced by the presence of an audience), and I look forward to pushing that particular envelope with more conceptually challenging cafe exhibitions in the future.

Many people seem to be pinning their hopes for Austin's development as a real art town on the eternally-proposed downtown museum. But I think that an element at least as important to achieving that status is the cultivation of a street-level appetite for the arts by actively nurturing and promoting dynamic local talent through familiar and accessable channels. In fact, without this appetite to serve as a foundation, any museum that is built is in danger of ending up itself an artifact of only academic interest rather than as an exciting, vital place for us all to exercise our minds and our culture. And if artists and cafe owners are diligent in their efforts to produce and present quality work with a degree of creativity and professionalism that engages, challenges, and entertains, the relationship between art and coffee could eventually rival those enjoyed between movies and popcorn or music and alcohol.