The gallery where Gary Panter, rock ‘n’ roll kids, card-carrying Surrealists and arts dowagers converge
By Steve Pick
Some of the paintings are hung on walls in places fit for viewing; others sit on the floor, awaiting their moments in the spotlight. A new show is being installed, and gallery owners Philip Slein and Tom Bussmann are handling the nuts and bolts themselves. Slein is the public face, but he and Bussmann are equal partners in what has quickly become one of the hippest art galleries in St. Louis.
“I was a painter myself,” says Slein, easing into one of the fat, comfortable lounge chairs near the front of the gallery, “and I’d had a bad experience with my big show at a local gallery. It was 2002; the stock market was crashing; it was right after 9/11, so, not surprisingly, the show didn’t go well. In an angry knee-jerk reaction, I announced I was going to open up my own gallery.”
Bussmann, a fixture on the St. Louis art scene for 30 years, talked Slein into a business model that would actually work. “I was naïve about the gallery business in St. Louis,” says Slein, “and I thought I could fix up a huge loft space, have a studio, show my own work and show the work of buddies I thought were good. Tom said we really had to do it right and open up a real gallery.”
The year, 2003, was a good one to get into the gallery business: The long-running and popular Elliot Smith Contemporary Art was soon to leave St. Louis entirely. Slein, who had managed nonprofit galleries for St. Louis Community College–Forest Park and Washington University—he still runs Wash. U.’s Des Lee Gallery, just a couple of blocks down Washington Avenue from his own—knew plenty of emerging young artists looking to show their work.
“We opened up with a big group show of local artists, and the place was packed,” he says. “We thought, ‘This is gonna be great.’ I really had no idea how hard the business was going to be, in St. Louis especially.”
Don’t get him wrong: Slein loves St. Louis. Born and raised in Ladue, he now has a loft downtown. “There are great opportunities for artists in St. Louis, especially emerging artists,” he says. “I’ve traveled around, and I couldn’t do what I’m doing anywhere else.”
As the gallery has grown, it’s attracted artists from around the country, and Chicago up-and-comers such as Fred Stonehouse mingle with local heroes Tom Huck and Tom Reed.
“We show a lot of the edgier stuff,” says Slein. “We are getting a reputation for a comic book–influenced, edgy aesthetic. At the same time, we have to service the conservative, decorative crowd. Just by being approachable, nice guys, we try to break down the thing of being a snobby gallery ... we’re known for having big openings where there is a really diverse group.
“Art is supposed to be about being excited, and about looking at stuff,” Slein concludes. “We’re not that out of touch from our student days. We want the kids to come down here. We know they’re not going to buy anything, but if they learn who Fred Stonehouse is, or Michael Byron, that’s great. We want to sell stuff, but to have a scene, to have the kids down here, the rock ’n’ rollers—that’s really important. The scene is diverse ... from the kids to the super-rich people.”
For info on upcoming shows at the gallery, go to stlmag.com.
Philip Slein Gallery, 1319 Washington, 314-621-4634, philipsleingallery.com
