Michael Workman

Imagine this headline: "River North is dead." If you're running a gallery in the neighborhood, your response would probably be something like "What the %@#&?" And yet, it's what conventional wisdom says of this gallery district's artistic community. River North, we're told, is the senescent grandparent to the rebellious grandchild of the West Loop, a newer art neighborhood pioneered by galleries like the former Vedanta Gallery (now Kavi Gupta), once seeking openness in the art culture, now fully merged into a kind of new old guard. Fassbender Gallery and Klein Art Works--both now closed--were early representatives of that migratory spirit, as are Carrie Secrist, Gescheidle, Peter Miller and a long list of ex-pats from River North. Why move away? "It was just too comfortable over there," says Susan Gescheidle of Gescheidle Gallery, "and here it's more raw. I think for art, raw is good." What about those who have stayed? "I do think tourists carry the day for a Chicago gallery. It makes the difference between one that succeeds and one that struggles, whether it's a gallery in River North, Donald Young or Rhona's gallery," says Ken Saunders co-director of Marx-Saunders, arguably the most successful glass gallery in the country. "And that means you want to stay close to hotels and parking--the boost we get from hotels is very significant; we do about seventy percent of our business with out-of-towners. It's a huge thing, and something highly significant that you can do for your artists: you can go to them and say, look, you're getting national exposure."

But has the neighborhood lost that essential bohemian edge and tilted in the direction of "crass commercialism?" Carl Hammer doesn't think so. "It's become not quite the cutting-edge gallery area that it was, but it's significantly entrenched enough with major galleries that it retains the title of the primary gallery district. Much larger than West Loop. It's become part of a larger identity, which is the design district, which runs from Merchandise Mart to Chicago Avenue, and that's provided for a very solid identity. I like what it used to be, but I do also like the diversification of people who come here not just for fine art."

Historically, it's a neighborhood where the late Ed Paschke would linger nights for a drink, where collectors, dealers and critics could mingle with artists, a place on the map where art could be said to truly meet commerce. As Hammer points out, business is booming: alongside the galleries are frame shops, lighting stores. Home furnishings are everywhere. And tourists clearly still recognize Superior Street, the main strip in the middle of the district, as a place where much of the best art the city has to offer can be purchased.

That national and international recognition is rooted in the neighborhood's rich history. Following on the heels of such successful late-fifties galleries, for instance, as Frank J. Oehlschlaeger, Fairweather-Hardin and Madeline Tourtelot's Gallery Studio--places unapologetically showing New York artists in Chicago--Zolla/Lieberman made the decision to "homestead" a gallery in the area when it was all derelict warehouses, and along with Donald Young, Rhona Hoffman, Richard Gray and Jan Cicero galleries, launched what we recognize as the modern River North art district. In 1973, a little tabloid magazine called The New Art Examiner started publishing, eventually opening offices on the north side of the neighborhood where it ran until closing in 2001. But it was the April 1989 fire that represented a turning point in the neighborhood, devouring dozens of galleries and millions of dollars worth of art. Today, town homes sit where a warehouse previously teemed with art galleries. Most everyone agrees that River North changed forever that fateful day.

So, what exactly has changed? It's a neighborhood that still contributes in a large way to what the novelist Leon Forrest once referred as an "ideal community." That is, a social space that provided him the personal support to complete his work in this city. Time was when River North was merely an outpost, recalls Natalie van Straaten, director of the Chicago Art Dealer's Association. "People originally moved to River North from Michigan Avenue, because they were looking for larger space, lower rents and opportunities to bring in the work they wanted to show. What was available on Michigan Avenue were these teeny little spaces and if you wanted to bring in large work, you just couldn't do it. These dealers didn't want to tell their artists their piece had to fit into a three-feet-by-four-feet area. I mean, one of the elevators in a building that burnt down was built to house a bowling alley--and the floor loads here are just phenomenal. That was the spirit in which people moved to River North: `How can we have viable spaces in a close proximity to the downtown area?'"

"If you were here in the mid- to late-eighties, this place was amazing," says Myra Casis, co-director of the ZG Gallery at 300 West Superior. "It was all warehouses. You'd go from one gallery to another to another, you didn't even know where one gallery started and another ended."

"Nationally, I've found that having a Superior Street address is a really important thing for us at this point." says partner Meg Sheehy. "At least, from my outdated sense of romanticism about what River North was [laughs]. I knew that it was outdated when I came here. It does still have cache outside the city, while inside the city--at Art Chicago, people were saying `I love this, how come I haven't seen this work, where is your gallery?' I say `On Superior Street.' And they say `Oh, I never go to River North.' It's frustrating! I mean, cholera isn't running through the streets! But we actually do kind of stand out here more than we would in West Loop. I think we add a little newness, a little juice and energy. We're mainly dealing with emerging artists whereas a lot of the older galleries, they started out with emerging artists and now they're established. This neighborhood's easier for us in a lot of ways. People come here for more established work, so we don't necessarily get those people to buy something from us, but we do extend some horizons. I know that for a fact."

And the ZG Gallery isn't alone in placing an emphasis on educating visitors about its artists. Down the street and around the corner, Mary Antonakos, director of the University of Illinois I Space Gallery, sees her place in the neighborhood as part of a natural progression in the art world. Traditionally, a young artist just emerging would show at a more experimental space, a university gallery or artist-run center, she says, and then the commercial people would come out, see it and they'd make the leap into a more commercial framework. Or adventurous collectors would come, buy something, and tell dealers and people they know that they should go see this work and so on. Having an opportunity in the neighborhood has proven advantageous for reaching a collecting audience looking for something new.

"I think it helps the commercial neighborhood too that we're here, because we're one of the venues that are pushing the envelope a little more than the commercial galleries might. And I do think that some of the galleries in this neighborhood could try harder too--they could push it a little bit, take on younger artists or they could take on work that's just stronger. I think to have a really good gallery, you show the tough work, you show the stuff that you have no hope of selling and that brings along everything else. And then you have your artists who you sell. What I find the problem is, with these galleries there may be only three or four times I want to go see them a year and that's just not good enough. The other factor that comes in here for everybody in Chicago is the New York-Miami-London-Berlin factor. Do collectors really support that kind of work here? Ask the dealers, and you'll find that their answer is: not really. It's really hard to get those collectors to support and keep the community going here. My argument is, then get tougher, show even more amazing work. But the tendency is, because you've got to pay the bills and pay your rent, is to get a little safer, and sell the work that's got a track record and maybe isn't as challenging."

While commercialism may lack adventurousness, it's worth noting that many of the city's first art galleries were opened in department stores such as Marshall Fields, fomented by a strong middle class flowing into the city as it expanded. And in River North, there's a strong expansion in housing with new condos going up everywhere. Van Straaten agrees. "There's a tremendous amount of residential, and you'd think people in new houses would be falling into galleries," she says. "But it's no longer just a creative community; it's more live/work/play." And the downside is what, exactly? "The only possible negative is if the neighborhood gets so upscale that rents price out galleries, but on the other hand business increases as well. Twenty years ago, you had to struggle to explain where River North was, particularly to people new to the city. But now River North is on their radar screens."

That visibility's a huge boon to Stephen Daiter Gallery. Having started off and since maintained its core practice as a private dealership, what's happening in the art culture doesn't really matter if it isn't helping bring in new clients. And the place to harvest the greater share of those new clients in Chicago is River North. "Steve is very firmly committed to River North as the primary location for the gallery scene," says gallery staffer Michael Welch. "And he has two main reasons that he cites--besides the obvious that this is the primary gallery scene--parking and transportation; the CTA and parking. But River North is the established art community, bar none--and West Loop is the younger gallery area--I mean, Rhona Hoffman and Carrie Secrist are established galleries, but as a district, they have a younger feel. Stephen had already been established on the national and international scene as a private dealer, then wanted to take the next step. The next step was logically the gallery. The biggest benefit from the gallery half is bringing in local clients, and that's something that's always been the biggest challenge for us: trying to attract local attention. I think, for us, up to this point, we've always operated as a destination gallery. If you want to come to Daiter Gallery and see a great show, you're always welcome, but you've got to come find us."

Although Byron Roche's gallery at 750 North Franklin offers visitors an unassuming atmosphere, clients are also clearly a major motivation for locating his space in River North. "The reason people go to the West Loop is that they don't want to be around all this other stuff, they just want to be around art people. But I'd rather be with all this design stuff and with furniture places because I'll get the kind of person who will come in here looking for that kind of stuff. Some of this stuff's going in museums and we're trying to do that whole thing, but really--where does this stuff go? Even saying it's going into collections is sometimes pushing it. Where does this stuff go? It goes into people's houses."

In the 1970s, about the time River North was starting to bud, the National Endowment for the Arts pumped huge floods of money into the community and with it, a number of "alternative spaces" began to emerge. Artists opened ateliers in their homes and apartments, galleries in storefronts and garages, just about anywhere a piece could be hung on the wall. While the "alternative" stance may have expanded horizons, thus contributing to the emergence of such districts as the West Loop, it's clear Chicago still needs a traditional, commercial gallery district. And any shakiness that River North may have experienced, according to Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick, are simply the effects of progress. When it comes to the bottom line, talent matters most for bringing people in.

"It's your basic scourge of real estate. I wonder how anybody can afford to have a gallery there," Fitzpatrick says. "But there are some very good galleries up there. Carl Hammer's been a stalwart there for years. There are still some galleries that will draw me to the neighborhood: Carl, Catherine Edelman, Printworks. But in some ways, I'm not crazy about either River North or even the West Loop. The West Loop is trying very hard to be a Chelsea knockoff. In that sense, at least the River North isn't as pretentious. But West Loop has its own good galleries, too. But you know, real estate follows the artist. In ten years, this'll be happening in West Loop. I'll tell you: if any gallery is smart, they get to the hotel concierges, give them $10 and a stack of show cards, because you want out-of-towners coming to your galleries.

And in that sense, River North's greatest asset is its stable identity, a fact that Van Straaten echoes. "Most of the growth in the city is from building rather than erosion from River North. The area has grown, and because of that growth other kinds of businesses have ended up in the area as well. As for cutting-edge, well, I don't think it was ever really cutting-edge, I think it's been a strong contemporary area. I don't think the galleries that have left have done so because the neighborhood has lost its edge, it's because they wanted more space. Some people rely on tourist traffic, see people want to have artists of an international caliber and people seek them out, some are serving young collectors who may be intimidated to go into galleries. I think it's easier for tourists to find River North than it was twenty years ago; now the concierges know about it. I think a lot of people will be going out on September ninth to see what they're rolling out."

(2005-09-06)

Also by Michael Workman

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