Curator Melanie O'Brian talks at Monte Clark Gallery Toronto during the 2011 Gallery Hop / photo Mariam Nader
Vancouver-based dealer Monte Clark has announced he will close his gallery’s Toronto location at the end of this month after 11 years in business. Its last day will be February 28, with its current group exhibition running until February 25 or 26.
Changes are also afoot for Clark’s gallery in Vancouver, with a big move to a larger space due to open February 21.
“Toronto has been an amazing city for me,” says Clark over the phone from Vancouver. “There has been a huge investment in Toronto and Toronto has made a huge investment in us. There’s a lot of Vancouver artists in Toronto collections, so that dialogue needs to be maintained. I guess that’s probably the biggest challenge ahead for me—to figure out what that dialogue looks like.”
Monte Clark Gallery originally opened in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood in 1992, and it moved to Granville Street in 1997.
Clark’s new 4,800-square-foot Vancouver space (the Granville gallery was more like 1,000 square feet) will be located at 525 Great Northern Way in the same converted tractor warehouse that also houses Equinox Gallery, which officially moved from Granville Street to Great Northern Way in September.
Clark’s new Vancouver location is also proximal to the new locations of Winsor Gallery and Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, to the future home of Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and to the longtime location of dealer Catriona Jeffries.
Clark says his new Vancouver space will allow him to create a gallery experience that is more open and interactive, with storage on display as well as exhibitions.
“I think as galleries we need to be more interactive with people,” Clark says. He says he was inspired by a recent visit to Basel’s Schaulager, a warehouse with open storage of contemporary art. “I liked this idea that you could access art, art that was in storage. My gallery won’t be quite like that, but the art certainly won’t be behind any ‘private’ sign.”
Instead, Clark says, when visitors enter the space they will see a wall of storage that is 80 feet long and 30 feet high. “I want you to come in and see us working and see what it is that galleries do,” he explains. Beyond that will be a space for exhibitions.
According to BlogTO,
Monte Clark Toronto opened at Queen & Augusta in 2001, and moved to the then-burgeoning Distillery District in 2003. In 2009, the gallery officially became a partnership between Clark and Daniel Faria.
The Toronto gallery was briefly known as Clark & Faria before Faria departed and opened his own gallery in 2011, taking three of Clark’s artists—Douglas Coupland, Kristine Moran and Mark Lewis—with him.
Along with other changes this month, Clark has announced he is taking on representation of internationally recognized Canadian artists Karel Funk and Tim Gardner—both of whom lacked Canadian representation in the past few years, and both of whom are represented stateside by New York’s 303 Gallery. Los Angeles artist Mari Eastman and UK artist Paul Housley are also new on the roster.
The inaugural exhibition in Vancouver will present a selection of paintings and sculptures by Housley as well as new pieces from Funk and Gardner.
Monte Clark Toronto staffer Jane Hutchison is also expected to open a space of her own in Toronto in the future, and may represent some of Clark’s artists through that venture.
This article was corrected on February 5, 2013. The prior version incorrectly identified Jane Hutchison as Jane Halverson.
