mountshang: Remembering Perimeter Gallery

As every artist knows, gallerists are blind, greedy, and backward.

But for every person who might be called a gallerist, there must be a thousand who might be called artists.

Which might suggest that running a gallery is a much more difficult enterprise.

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Perimeter Gallery was a destination for me in Chicago's River North gallery district long before I began writing reviews for New City.

It may not show figurative art in the European tradition - but the owner has always pursued the beautiful rather than just the provocative.

Over the past eight years, I've seen many of my favorite galleries close - and it's not as if other other galleries jump in to represent artists from their rosters. The gallery business is based on personal taste and relationships with collectors - and there are lots of good artists to choose from. Very rarely has the business been handed over from one owner to another - and when that happens - it's usually been to a family member.

Few, if any, of Perimeter's artists will ever be shown in Chicago again. Which is sad.

But on the other hand -- new galleries -- with new groups of artists -- appear every year.

As I once wrote about Keiko Hara's paintings (see the link below):

"There is just nature, endlessly inventive and immortal ..... always dying, and always re-emerging as something new."

Here is a list of the Perimeter artists I have reviewed over the years: