In uncertain times, a new St. Petersburg gallery is making a big investment, and it's concentrating on showing art that is as marketable as it is appealing.
By LENNIE BENNETT
Published June 29, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - The space is arresting. The artists are locally well-known and, in some cases, nationally well-connected. But the big question is: Will the new Kingdon Alan Gallery make it?
In an economic climate that has shut down at least one local fine arts gallery and has most others hanging on by their paint chips, two entrepreneurial art lovers opened a stylish venue in St. Petersburg a week ago. Recent occurrences, such as the demise of Gallery Enormous, have proved that optimism and a good eye are not enough.
But Courtney Krippendorf, 25, and Rich Kauffmann, 42, are trying to negotiate that narrow corridor in which art is aesthetically interesting and commercially viable.
"We're a business," Krippendorf said. "I had to be very careful about what (art) I chose. We have a 10-year lease, and I want to stay here."
He has managed several other local galleries and met Kauffmann, a money manager who lives in Crystal River with his three children, when Kauffmann began collecting art.
"I'm the money man, and Courtney's the creative person," Kauffmann said. He estimates that he has invested more than $1-million in the venture, most of it for the long-term lease.
It may be a business, but it is neither a gift shop (no ceramic mugs) nor a repository for inexpensive reproductions (no Thomas Kinkade posters). This is art that asks to be taken seriously. But not too seriously. The owners are concentrating on paintings, that most popular discipline for viewers and buyers. And even in that area, you won't find high-concept, "difficult" or chance-taking art.
Three of the five artists who are on view now and will form the core of Kingdon Alan's inventory have solid track records as award-winners: Painters Leslie Neumann and Fran Hardy received Florida Visual Art Fellowships in the past, for example, and ceramist Yasuko Nakamura won the Best of Show award at the Mainsail Arts Festival in 1990. Painter Antonio Caparello is not as credentialed but is every bit as talented, and he is the most diverse in his technique and subject matter. Dan Stack, married to Neumann, has probably the lowest profile of the group, painting tropical scenes in oil, sometimes juxtaposed with architectural elements.
What the painters have in common is the predilection to make art that is technically accomplished and for the most part representational. They come to their canvases with different techniques and materials.
The most ravishing are Hardy's. She uses a Renaissance technique of laying down an egg tempera base on a gesso panel, then building up layers of oil, sometimes taking six months to complete one painting. Her still lifes and nature paintings are decorative in the way that those of the Dutch masters were, with the contemporary edge of photorealism.
The luminosity of Neumann's paintings comes from her use of another old technique: layering wax (called encaustic) and oils to create her mysterious landscapes that often approach abstraction.
Nakamura often fires her sculptural vessels twice at very high temperatures to create exceptional surface finishes.
Caparello is all over the place with his subject matter, but his work has a painterly bravado and a pop sensibility probably born from his years as a billboard painter, like that of James Rosenquist, for whom he worked as an assistant.
Prices range from less than $200 for a hand-colored iris print by Neumann to five figures for paintings.
The gallery owners plan to have rotating shows but for the short term are beginning slowly.
"I've had probably five calls a day from artists" wanting to hang their work in the new space, Krippendorf said.
And what artist wouldn't?
Architect Jovica Milic has taken a bland 3,000 square feet on the first floor of the new Hampton Inn at First Avenue N and Beach Drive and turned it into a serene, neutral backdrop that also manages to be hip, with soft white walls, concrete floor and exposed air-conditioning ducts. The architect and owners also designed handsome birch easels and multifunctional display racks on wheels. The concrete countertops have stainless steel inlays and sometimes trapezoidal shapes that give them a postmodern edge.
The name of the gallery is a combination of Krippendorf's and Kauffmann's middle names.
The two opening nights a week ago were successful, Krippendorf said, with several works sold and appointments on the calendar for followup visits from interested collectors.
Lovely as the space and art are, the paintings, when seen together, have a general sameness. That is the intention of many gallery owners who cultivate a certain kind of art that will draw a regular clientele.
In these times, it's a smart thing to do. Other galleries - Covivant and Beaker in Tampa, Salt Creek in St. Petersburg, for example - provide more thought-provoking art to those who are interested. Tampa's Clayton Galleries, one of the best, is closer to the kind of gallery that Kingdon Alan wants to be, with a solid group of highly regarded, collectible artists that is shown throughout the year, supplemented with newer names. Like Clayton's, the Kingdon Alan owners are the only representatives who sell work locally by many of the artists they show, something essential to financial success. Unlike most other galleries, this one also has in Kauffmann a deep-pockets partner who plans to make it a financially independent operation but isn't counting on it.
"I don't want to lose money," Kauffmann said. "But I love art, and this is a labor of love."
Krippendorf and Kauffmann are already taking a big risk in opening. I hope they take one more and occasionally show art that is a little more unconventional. Even - dare I suggest it? - a little risky.
If you go
Kingdon Alan Gallery, 70 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg, is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment. (727) 825-0111.
