Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011
New home lets Raleigh gallery grow
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closeVisual Art Exchange's new digs on West Martin Street are blocks away but worlds apart from the old City Market location.
In VAE's 15-year home on Blake Street, the single storage closet was stacked to the ceiling, the installation gallery was unheated and staff members had to turn away most artists because of lack of wall space.
At four times the size, 309 West Martin boasts 12-foot ceilings, expanded office space and - most important - room for more local artists' work.
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Here's a sneak-peek into what's happening during the First Friday Gallery Walk.
Visual Art Exchange: 22nd Annual N.E.W. (Never Exhibited Works) Show, 6 to 9 p.m. Exhibit runs through September.
Busy Bee Cafe: Photography by Emily Price, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Exhibit runs through September.
311 Gallery and Studios: "Urban Perspectives: Cityscapes by Denee' Black and Becca Bellamy," 6 to 9 p.m.
Visit triangle.com to see a full guide to First Friday and see photos from last month's gallery walk.
"As a visitor, you're still going to get that cozy feeling," VAE board chairman Alex Lehmann said. "It's a larger space, but the way they positioned the walls, it still lends itself to that cozy local gallery environment."
VAE opens its new doors to the public for the first time this First Friday after a ticketed on-site celebration the night before. Located near the Contemporary Art Museum in the Warehouse District just outside downtown, the larger space will allow the nonprofit gallery and artist association to better fulfill its mission to support and educate local artists, programs director Sarah Corpron said.
"Being near them, bringing in our audience and theirs, will make that whole area even more vibrant and exciting," Corpron said.
Corpron describes the new gallery as "very raw, very industrial," with concrete floors and bare wood support beams on the ceiling. The City Market location closed for the past month while volunteers helped with the move and worked around the clock to prepare the new space for opening.
"It used to be pretty packed in the old space, floor to ceiling art, so it was a challenge finding what looked good together," exhibitions director Meredith Burgess said. "The new space gives us a little more leeway."
For its inaugural exhibitions, VAE will host "The N.E.W. Show" in its main gallery, a celebration of never-exhibited work created by local artists in the past year.
The Cube, the new installation gallery space, will feature artist Christian Ryan's installation "Pleasureware + Speculative Bodies," which invites viewers to try on and play with fanciful and futuristic clothing-like pieces on display.
