Volume 1, Issue No. 2 - Revolt Magazine

ecause the gallery’s purpose is neither to be
exclusive to men nor to isolate women. Having
men participate with the gallery is important
and allows us to foster relationships with
likeminded people. The residency being open
to men and women was an idea that everyone
agreed with for the reason that we want to
be accessible and have men be part of the
gallery. Unfortunately we have not yet
had any men participate, although several
have been finalists. The very first time that
we held interviews for the residency we had a
male finalist whose work was incredibly strong.
And yet it’s not always about whose work is
Photo by Elisa Garcia de la Huerta, Jenn Dierdorf of SOHO20 Gallery
the best or the strongest or who has the most
sparkling exhibition record. It has to do with
who can we help the most, who would benefit
the most. It’s always a group decision. Another
time we did select a male resident but he was
unable to do it having been offered another
residency. Basically our record doesn’t show
that we’ve ever had a male resident but we
are trying. The other thing is 90% of these
decisions are made from looking at someone’s
work. Same with gallery membership, the
work is the first thing that decisions are based
on, and all other material is supplementary.
Unless an artist is making work that is
extremely autobiographical, not much is known
about the artist at the time of the jurying.
KC: In terms of this notion of the collective…
how does that actually play out at Soho20 in
terms of interactions between members? Do
they come to one another’s shows? Do you all
meet regularly?
JD: Yes! Of course it varies, but especially
the NYC members are incredible! As part
of their contract they take on a “job” at the
gallery, which ranges from committee work,
fundraising, jurying to accounting and web
design. Many of these artists work full time
jobs and still find the time and energy to assist
the gallery AND make art! They bring a lot
of energy and enthusiasm to the gallery. We
also have monthly meetings where members
discuss operational issues and also vote
on new applicants for membership. And
of course, each month we have opening
receptions, artist talks, panel discussions, etc.
and members do come out and support each
other. There are different levels of interaction
and some participate more than others. The
important thing is that there is incredible
potential here, I am working to build a gallery
that encourages creative thinking and self
empowerment in order to create change.
KC: Who writes the press release?
JD: The artist can write it if they want to or have
someone else write it. I write a lot of them.
It’s sort of open but all of that stuff is filtered
through me for consistency. I typically format
the press releases, assist with design and edit
press materials. Making sure everything holds
together and looks good is my job.
KC: Do you ever show artists that are not
Soho20 members?
JD: Yes. If the schedule permits we sometimes
rent space to women artists, though their work
must be approved by our executive board. We
do have our annual juried show which is open
to all men and women artists and is juried by
a well-known curator in NYC. We have worked
with Kate Gilmore, Phong Bui, Dean Daderko
and Chakia Booker to name a few. There are
people who participated in a juried show three
years ago that will stop in just to say hi or chat.
We’ve had people fly from Europe or across
the U.S. to see their work in the juried show.
It’s nice to see how important an exhibition
opportunity can be to someone.
We try to keep our application fees low, usually
$35, and offer perks to make it worth it for the
artists that are selected. We don’t take for
granted that these applications are sometimes
a difficult expense for artists. Being a nonprofit
organization we are always balancing our
search for funding with supporting our mission
statement. In the 90s and earlier the juried
show was a huge income generator which
helped to fund a significant portion of the
gallery’s expenses. Juried show applications
could draw upwards of $30,000 back then,
and now even commercial galleries offer open
calls with application fees. Nowadays there
is no shortage of places willing to take artist’s
money.
KC: I agree. I started to feel like it was a big
scam preying on young artists who are very
poor and very much dreamers. You know
you’ll have these commercial galleries that do
these juried shows all the time.
JD: It’s an interesting new development
that I kind of saw happen. I blame it on the
recession, how you’d start to see commercial
galleries doing things that were usually
reserved for non-profits. I’m just like - you
can’t do that that’s for us to do we’re the
ones that need the money! It’s an interesting
development to see how badly they need
the money too. I’ve seen open calls where
three galleries might partner together and do
something where you can pay to have them
look at your work and they’ll pick one artist for
representation. People will go bananas for that
kind of stuff. On occasion there will be more
interesting things to occur because of lack of
money. I enjoy seeing changes that develop
out of necessity. The move of galleries out
of Chelsea and into the Lower East Side for
example is great. It spreads out the “center”
of the art world a bit and mixes galleries
with neighborhoods and commerce. And the
spaces in the LES are much different than the
cavernous warehouse galleries in Chelsea.
KC: How optimistic are you, do you think it’s a
good time to be a women artist?
JD: (Chuckle) Sure I think it is! If you’re asking
about the politics involved than I think yes,
people are paying more attention to art and
social change in areas of race, politics, gender
etc. Perhaps the fact that SOHO20 still exists,
still needs to exist, can be an eye opener
to some about the under-representation of
women in the art world. Like many issues, this
too has this way of silently being embedded
in our culture so that it may be unnoticed or
worse, benign. Women have always advanced
in affecting change through subversive means
and art is very conducive to working that way.
This may seem in opposition to my role as the
director of a Feminist gallery but I feel like it’s
too disruptive to do things in outright protest. I
very much support the Occupy movement and
find great value in solidarity and the resources
that the movement has created, though the
action of change is subtle. It’s about choices
and support and community. But there are
a lot of interesting things happening – the
first performance art exhibition by Marina
Abramovic at MoMA, critics and writers being
more vocal about women artists, commercial
art galleries that specifically support women
artists – and there are many more examples of
this kind of momentum.
KC: Hell yea.