ANOTHER PLACE TO GO SEE ART IN SANTA FE? Really?
Turns out, this one is quite different. It’s not a gallery, it’s not a museum – it’s an Art Container.
Veteran gallery owners Tonya Turner Carroll and Michael Carroll are reinventing the old museum/gallery paradigm, working as institutional peers, constantly pivoting from gallery to collector to institutional venue.
What that looks like is a new, 5,000 square-foot shipping container art space in the Baca that will be a venue for traveling museum exhibitions, that will show curated exhibitions from their collection, and that will be a creative exhibition space for invited artists from around the world.
As Tonya puts it, “This is a new and radical concept space, following the European art house approach, but where the artwork will be for sale, as well.”
We tracked down the couple at Art Basel and, via Zoom, heard about how they’re working to fix the art world.
Why do we need another space for art in Santa Fe?
Tonya: We’re doing something a little different. The Art Container will be a venue to extend traveling museum shows, and we’ll curate exhibitions from our collection as well as invite other galleries and artists from various parts of the world to create and show in the space.
There’s no place now in Santa Fe – or any city that I can think of – that can, within a matter of months, bring a show that’s ending a tour and extend its life in a new space. Institutions don’t have the funding to do that, and they’re backed up for years with upcoming exhibitions. If we see an exhibition and
don’t want it to end, if we want to amplify its voice, then we can go to New York tomorrow, and in three months show something that would otherwise disappear. There’s no other model like this.
And we have flexibility in what we show. In addition to extending an existing show, we will also have an unlimited collaborative space. We can invite artists in to do whatever they want; they can even create something totally new.
Michael: We are moving away from the old gallery paradigm of a primary New York or West Coast gallery “owning” an artist, calling the shots as to what other galleries can show and when they can show it. Basically leaving galleries with leftovers.
Tonya: We’re disrupting that whole model by partnering with other galleries. We can say, Hey New York gallery, San Francisco gallery, we like your artist – we’re going to curate a show from both of your galleries, and nobody is going to be the primary dealer. We’re all going to be partners.
Similar to the disruption that is happening in publishing and film, where middlemen are going away and creators are gaining power.
Michael: Exactly. Short-circuiting the old paradigm. And we’re incredibly excited to have found a piece of architecture that makes as much of a statement as breaking apart the art world rule book.
Tonya: When we work with another gallery for an artist, it’s not 1+1=2, it’s 1+1=10. The old paradigm of gallery representation is a system that was manufactured by a commercial interest, and that’s something we’re changing.
Michael: Have you seen Fendace, the collaboration between Fendi and Versace? There’s something in the moment, in our time, where people have snapped to this idea of collaboration.
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Photo Mary Moon
