INTERVIEWS
Garth Clark
Janet Kardon
Edmund de Waal...

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Garth Clark   1      2      3      4      5      6      -      PRINTER VERSION

>> Clark: No, the gallery didn't begin until 1982.

RB: What prompted you to become an active dealer in an area that in the past you had just written about?

GC: Well, a number of things. I think I have never really seen myself particularly as an academician. I've always seen myself as an impresario. I like that kind of role. It has a lot of freedom, it gives one a lot of adventure and fun. Before the gallery, I spent 12 years functioning on a purely academic level. Nobody was dealing in that area then, there were no specialists writing about ceramics. The writing about ceramics was done by other ceramists which I thought was very unhealthy for a number of reasons. I mean, if all art criticism was done by other artists, and in particular by your friends, it does not make for a good critical environment. I also began to realize that the university circuit had become very sterile, that if a new energy was going to come out, it was not going to come out of academia; that was beginning to turn around and run down hill. I think in particular of a long discussion I had with Richard DeVore, and Richard and I discussed the whole thing, and Richard said, "You know, if you really want to be effective, you have to get into the commercial arena because that's where one can now make the difference." Because you're dealing directly with collectors and museums, in a much tougher manner than when one is writing articles and lecturing at universities. It just seemed like the next logical step. It wasn't something that was very clearly thought out and it wasn't a very mercenary move, because at the time we made it, I wasn't sure that something like this could function. Subsequently it has worked very well—L.A. has been successful, New York has opened and been extremely successful, and we have just opened a London office. We take ourselves very seriously; we're a computerized organization (laugh).

RB: There is a lot of criticism of you and your writing that has not been voiced publicly. The feeling is that your being both a dealer and a writer presents a kind of conflict of interests, or at the very least clouds the credibility of your writing.

GC: That came up yesterday. I was at the Rhode Island School of Design giving a lecture there and the same question was asked. I try and be as good about it as I can. For instance, I represent Adrian Saxe. There was recently an article published about Adrian (American Ceramics) which I was involved in, but it was an interview and I feel that with my own artists I can do something like that. In an interview you allow the artists to speak for themselves. The interviewer doesn't have the same leverage that one has when one is writing a purely critical article about something. I don't write about our artists on that level, I will not review the work of any other artist who is involved in another gallery that might be in a competitive situation to us. Indeed, I won't write critically on any contemporary work with exceptions where, perhaps, I am asked to write about one of our artists in an exhibition catalogue, which is perfectly acceptable; this is done frequently. What I am very actively involved in are shows that have a historical basis. I have been commissioned by a museum to go to Italy and try to bring back a very intriguing exhibition of Italian works from the '20s and '30s that are in a couple of private collections. I am doing an exhibition for the Gardner Museum in Toronto on the work of Hans Coper. I feel that Hans Coper is
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