Hwhat in da werld?!
The Core is a small room in Anna Todaros art studio
at The Everett Station Lofts.
625 NW Everett #230
Portland, OR, 97209
It is only 3.5 feet high.
It exists to see and experience artwork in a unique context.
anna at the entrance of her three and a half foot tall gallery
The Core is not just any gallery, it's super short, at only 3.5' high....
It's actually the size of a normal room, at 9' X 9', it's just a little short, so you have to crawl
to see shows in it!
I kinda think of it as a special space, which is just a space, which magically exists.
I mean, it doesn't even count as part of my square footage...
It's not a non-profit, but it's not for profit...
It is like a free space: I don't have to pay anything to have it, aside from the work I put into it.
It just is what it is...
And I love it for that!"
-Anna Todaro
Coeur
To me, the Core is a heart
I believe In French it is spelled Coeur
I would really like to see more art and artists
who are able to transend the reactionary phase...
Anna Todaro, curator for the Core
Small mercies keep art walk interesting
Canvases fly from one tiny gallery; elsewhere the images flow like water
By Joseph Gallivan
The Portland Tribune Dec 4, 2006 (2 Reader comments)
A busload of design students on an art field trip from Missoula, Mont., got a pleasant surprise while exploring Portland during November’s First Thursday art walk.
They checked out the Core Gallery in the Everett Station Lofts and ended up buying 10 of the 35 paintings on display by Chris Haberman (22 were sold altogether).
The works were only about $50 each, so no biggie. Until you realize the Core Gallery is just a crawl space inside Anna Todaro’s live-work studio.
You enter through a 2-by-2-foot hatch and there it is, an L-shaped room with 3 1/2-foot ceilings and enough space for about six warm bodies at a time. It’s like “Being John Malkovich.”
“I used to look in here and think, ‘White walls, wood floor – it’s a gallery!’” says the chirpy Todaro, 25, whose own quite good paintings (“urban pop surreal”) are stacked three deep around the room.
Above the Core is a loft bedroom, newly occupied by not one but two roommates. Todaro moved her bed into the closet, which she enters through a curtain of clothes on hangers.
Haberman took his show down early because half of it was gone (no red dots here – it was cash and carry), but a new one, by Troy John McCray, opens Thursday evening. McCray’s “Doll Relic” sculptures and photographs are pretty spooky – dolls with nails through their heads.
See, Portland still has a few surprises left.
First Thursday reception 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Dec 7; regular hours by appointment, Core Gallery, 625 N.W. Everett St., No. 230, 815-793-4496, www.ohdivine.com/thecore.html
32 casual suppositions about Art Galleries
01. All Galleries are not created equal.
02. All galleries do not share uniform architectural features.
03. Most galleries are not cubes.
04. Some galleries are not white.
05. Galleries can be anywhere.
06. Galleries in malls don¹t usually sell art, neither do galleries in museums.
07. Architecturally uniform galleries exist only in museums and malls.
08. Architecturally uniform galleries are called white cubes.
09. Galleries that rarely advertise usually have art.
10. Galleries that always advertise rarely have art.
11. Galleries with funny names often have a person living in them.
12. Galleries that have people living in them are rarely in malls or museums.
13. Older galleries tend to sell older art.
14. The oldest galleries with names are not Tate, Guggenheim or Getty.
15. These are in fact institutions that have galleries and house art.
16. Some old names house art but don¹t have galleries. These are considered collectors.
17. Art galleries are not distinctive by class or education.
18. Art collectors however are.
19. Collectors can have only as much art as critics and historians say they have.
20. Galleries however can have as much art as they need.
21. Galleries always need more collectors.
22. Collectors rarely need more galleries.
23. Printed matter can present artwork that might only be viewed via their Publication.
This however does not make the publication a gallery. It makes these periodicals or books
collectable or the artwork universal.
24. Galleries do not define the specific interpretation of an artwork.
25. An art work that is specific can be informed by a galleries structure.
26. Specificity of an artwork does not make a gallery an artwork.
27. Galleries can be proposed as artwork.
28. Galleries proposed as art work are typically not for sale in other galleries.
29. Institutions hate galleries occasionally.
30. Galleries love institutions occasionally.
31. Galleries are created often.
32. Galleries can be destroyed just as frequently.
-Michael Thomas
Dogmatic Gallery, Chicago
