Swanson Reed Contemporary: An Unexpected Twist on Art
Expect the unexpected at Swanson Reed Contemporary, which has, from the beginning, introduced Louisville to the latest trends in contemporary art. At a recent showing, Swanson Reed Contemporary featured what appeared, to the uninitiated, to be a gumball machine. Instead, the mechanism dispensed teensy and whimsical works of art created by Washington, D.C., artist Renee Shaw for a quarter. Talk about accessible art!
“It has to be the cheapest art in town!” laughs co-owner Chuck Swanson.
The gallery’s plate-glass windows revealed row upon row of Mason jars, also part of Shaw’s Preserved Art exhibition. Each jar contained one of Shaw's arrangement, each priced at $20.
In 1998, Swanson Reed Contemporary became the second art gallery to locate in what was to become the arts mecca of the East Market District. The gallery displays contemporary national and regional artists working in painting, photography or sculpture. Swanson Reed Contemporary also showcases works in more avant-garde formats, whether video, installation, conceptual art or performance art.
Swanson opened his first art gallery in the Highlands in 1982, when Louisville had few such venues. (It’s now been renamed Swanson Reed Gallery.) In 2002 Swanson introduced Louisville to video art with a 10-day installation by Russel Hulsey, “Conducting Silence.” Hulsey was then a 20-something little-known artist, although the Louisville-based artist has since made quite a name for himself.
Ten exhibits a year grace the gallery’s main level, about half of them solo shows. The lower level accommodates video and installation space and an outdoor sculpture garden.
In the gallery’s cozy interior, you’ll find works by many of up-and-coming artists — both regional and national — such as Rodney Hatfield, Marco Logsdon, Valerie Sullivan Fuchs, Michael Wayne, Shaw and more. Swanson was an early promoter of folk artists Mark Anthony Mulligan and Marvin Finn.
Carved primitives by the late Marvin Finn now reside in galleries and museums across the country, including at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft and above the doorway out into the outdoor sculpture garden. Speaking of Finn, the self-effacing Swanson says, “Really, it was somebody who worked for me who discovered him.”
The gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Swanson Reed Contemporary is open until 9 p.m. on the first Friday of the month for the First Friday Trolley Hop.
Posted on Feb 4, 2011 by Ivonne Rovira
