GLOBE STAFF PHOTO/CHITOSE SUZUKI
GLOBE STAFF PHOTO/CHITOSE
SUZUKI
| Notes from the underground | ||
| By David Wildman GLOBE CORRESPONDENT SOMERVILLE - Blaine Ber- shad, who co-owns an art gallery and an architectural firm in the same building, has an unusual philosophy. "I was raised in a northem sub- urb of Chicago, and it was a com- munity where all businesses would open their doors for non- profits," he said. "It is natural for me to support the arts, and by that I don't just mean painting and sculpture. I mean music and per- foming arts, too.... This is part of what we have to do as a busi- ness." It is Bershad's philosophy, coupled with artistic openness and a willingness to experiment, that has recently brought an un- likely cast of characters into the sleek, concrete and glass gallery on Dover Street. There have been performances by such rock icons as i Mascis of the famed group Dinosaur Jr. (who played DJ, spinning his fa- vorite records); Wharton Tiers, producer of the group Sonic Youth, who performed with his own avant-garde ensemble; and local heroes of loud guitar like Chris Brokaw and Thalia Zedek of Come, who provided live music to a film by Suara Welitoff. Edgy poets and authors pub- lished by the local online altema- tive press, Primal Publishing, have also read their work at the gallery. The person mostly responsible for presenting this vanguard of the underground scene is Gallery Bershad's new assistant director, Maura Jasper. An artist with cre- dentials at altemative art galler- ies, she created the cover art for some of the original Dinosaur Jr. releases back in the mid-80s. "When I was hired to coordi- nate events, I knew that the idea of programming music and poetry could possibly turn out to be a big yawn," said Jasper. "I wanted to choose things that, if they were happening somewhere else, I would want to go see them." |
Jasper, who also works
at the rock club Lilli's in Somerville, brought her knowledge of the Bos- ton and New York underground rock and small press publishing scenes to her event planning at Gallery Bershad. It was easy for her to get her longtime friend Mascis to make an appearance, she said. She also knew Tiers, who had engineered and mixed on Mascis's 1992 al- bum'Whatever's Cool With Me," and was also the superintendent of the building where Mascis lived in New York. For his part, Tiers was enthusiastic about coming to Boston with his instrumental five- guitar group to play in an art gal- lery. "I was looking for a different sort of place to play in Boston," said Tiers. "I started out in the '70s doing shows in galleries in New York, and I feel very comfort- able with it. For me it was ideal. The audience that was there was totally tuned in. If playing rock music can bring people into a gal- lery and turn them on to art, how can you lose?" Gallery director Roland Smart, a Tufts University graduate and former director of the Star Gallery in Newton, was hired only a few months before Jasper. He's been working quickly to try to "hip up" the gallery's previously staid im- age by combining an under- ground sensibility with the appro- priate artwork. "It's a strategy shift," explains Smart. "I see it as, there is a front door and a back door to running a gallery. The front door means get- ting collectors to come in and buy artwork. That's a long process. The back door is to create excite- ment about the space, to get a lot of young, new energy into the space, and that will draw the oth- er collectors. It also allows us to create richer shows because we keep in touch with what is really happening in the city." |
Smart's current exhibit,
"Mo- dernModular," explores how the measure and rhythm of modem design concepts have influenced the production of contemporary art, and features both the artwork and also live sounds by electronic musician Andrew Neumann, who performed at the exhibit's open- ing Friday. Also featured are a va- riety of other artists working in mixed-media, sculpture, painting, collage, video and installation. This Friday (12/15/00) is the second in- stallment of the gallery's "Sensori- al Series," which celebrates con- temporary experimental literature, poetry, criticism, film, and music. The show will include music by White Collar Crime, an outfit that plays "anti-corporate anthems" using keyboard sounds. The group is headed by New York-based Sander Hicks, whose independent publishing imprint, Soft Skull Press, recently released a controversial biography of George W. Bush, J.H. Hatfield!s "Fortunate Son." St. Martin's Press had recalled the book when questions were raised about the author's criminal record. Friday evening's events will also include sets by local rock bands Senor Happy and the An- chormen, plus readings by Somer- ville poet Eileen Myles and Todd Colby, an anarchist writer and multimedia performance artist from New York. Both have been published by Soft Skull Press. While having rock perfor- mances in an art gallery might seem to pose potential problems of crowding, noise, and the like, Bershad is undaunted. "So far the room has just got- ten comfortably full," he said. 'We've only had one problem, and that was during a private party that was held here. Someone stole a custom-designed toilet paper holder. "It has been a huge amount of fun, and I think that we are better architects because of the art and performances going on here," he said. |
Appearing in the Boston Sunday Globe, City Weekly, page 13, December 10, 2000
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