A new gallery has just zoomed onto Cherokee Street, and it belongs on your must-visit list. It’s also a new kind of gallery, with maximum benefit to the artists.
Monaco opened last Friday with a packed-to-the-gills reception for Grand Prix: A Grand Opening Group Exhibition. If you missed it, fear not. You have four more Saturdays until it closes December 30 to take it in.
Stay up-to-date with the local arts scene
Subscribe to the weekly St. Louis Arts+Culture newsletter to discover must-attend art exhibits, performances, festivals, and more.
The show features work from all 12 of the project’s founding members. It includes installation, textiles, furniture and much more, representing the diverse practices of the dozen emerging and mid-career artists.
The exhibition is an excellent entrée into the gallery’s concept, which is filling a gap in the city’s art scene. After the closure of artist-run places like White Flag Projects and fort gondo, and with no artists co-op in the city, there was a clear vacuum.
“Not seeing what we wanted in St. Louis, in the true spirit of DIY, we decided to try to do something ourselves,” says Sage Dawson, a founding member of Monaco.
The Luminary brought together an initial group of working artists with the concept and a space to fill this need. A few more joined in by invitation of the other artists, and the core group of 12 was formed
“It just kind of came out of an unfortunate situation, and thinking about what sort of resources we might have if we pooled them together to open a space in St. Louis,” Dawson says.
It’s a commercial gallery, and while it’s not nonprofit, it’s not making money itself. The pooled resources of the members go to paying rent, and artists keep all the proceeds from sales of their artwork. They’ll use this approach to enter art fairs.
After the opening show, each artist will have their own exhibition slot. They can do whatever they want—a solo show, a group show with artists they invite, a show put together by a guest curator…
“We can involve other artists in the St. Louis community in the project, and also similarly artist-run spaces from around the country,” says Dawson.
Monaco, the spot at 2701 Cherokee, is meant to reference lots of aspects of Monaco, the tiny, sexy, glamorous little city-state on the Mediterranean coastline of France.
“People know it for its art and luxury items, and its autonomy,” says Dawson. “Monaco the city-state already hints at luxury and art and commercialism. We wanted to adopt the same to suggest those things about ourselves.”
Monaco got off the ground with a little help from its many friends. A GoFundMe campaign exceeded its funding goal.
“We wanted to see if our local community would support a gallery of this nature,” says Dawson. She stresses how grateful members of Monaco are for the support.
“Turns out people were really supportive. It’s hard not to feel excited about a bunch of artists opening a space and selling their work and that money actually going to artists.”
Watch this space.
Monaco, 2701 Cherokee Street. Saturdays, 12-6 p.m.
