Contemporary Artworks Have a New Place to Hang

For many years, those looking for the fringes of the Ventura art scene veered to the fringes of town, to the studio and gallery space known as Art City.

The compound sprawled on the edge of the Ventura River lost its gallery space at the end of last year, though, leaving artists and art aficionados high and dry.

But the opening in October of the San Buenaventura Artists’ Union Gallery has helped fill the avant-garde gap, while allowing the city to fulfill its arts goals.

The gallery, next to the Holiday Inn and a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean, occupies half of a space most recently used as a gift shop and a restaurant. Before that, it housed the popular jazz haunt Charlie’s.

Photographer and gallery member Stephen Schafer said the new gallery grew, in part, out of Art City’s absence.

“Now that Art City is not there anymore, there was a vacuum for contemporary art in Ventura,” he said. “We put that to the city. They said, ‘Well, we’ve got this space.’ ”

The space turned out to be prime oceanfront real estate, available because the city’s 1998 Cultural Plan called for a contemporary art space in the city’s downtown cultural district. It was offered to the artist union for the bargain price of $1 a month.

Being offered the space, Schafer said, “was the kick in the pants we needed to open up. I told everyone, ‘This is the chance to make it or break it.’ ”

The union, whose membership has wavered but now stands at 35 active members, has been around for a decade without a gallery space to call its own. A few years ago, it nearly did find a home, on the third floor of Ventura City Hall. Hopes were high, but structural problems prevented the space from becoming an official gallery.

As it turns out, the new Artists’ Union Gallery has a much higher public visibility than the third-floor gallery.

In this neighborhood, unsuspecting and curious passersby are common. One recent day, a couple peered into the closed gallery.

Schafer, who was working inside, urged them to sign up for a mailing list. “We come down here often but never knew this existed,” the woman said.

Said poet Phil Taggart, currently the union president, “It’s an incredible shock that we’ve become so visible, probably more visible than we’ll ever be again. The city of Ventura is to be commended.”

Inaugurating the gallery space in October was an exhibit of work by union members, with the title “The Yet Unnamed Gallery.” The second, current show is on the theme of “Time,” curated by Meg Linton, head of the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara.

The ticking sound you hear in the gallery comes from the clock-based assemblage pieces by Schafer himself, deviating from his usual medium of photography.

Also in the show is an abstract sculpture called “Histories Prayers a Sentinel,” by Paul Lindhard, the founder and head of Art City, who is now the artist union’s vice president. Another familiar name from Art City is union treasurer M.B. Hanrahan, whose piece in this show is called “Tragedy Timing.” A vaguely tense triptych painted on unstretched canvas, the work hangs high on a wall and casts an air of mild dread amid the vivid colors and imagery.

An upstairs gallery is a fine small space of its own, suitable for smaller shows. It can also provide a safety net for shows that may contain images unsuitable for general walk-up traffic. Next up in the gallery schedule is an exhibition called “Love and War,” basically a continuation of the annual erotic art shows held at Art City for many years.