Artist News

Treasured art space in Dallas' Design District to close after 7 years

More change wrought by the pandemic.

Photo courtesy of SITE131

A one-of-a-kind gallery space in Dallas' Design District will close its doors: Site 131, which showcased young and up-and-coming artists, will close on Saturday, June 18 with a going-away party from 1-3 pm, as a thank you and farewell to the North Texas arts community.

Guests are invited to celebrate the history of the venue, located at 131 Payne St., and are encouraged to wear bright white, as a hat tip to an artist's blank surface.

Site 131 was founded in 2015 by acclaimed curator and critic Joan Davidow and her son Seth Davidow as a kind of museum, to experience and learn about art, with a special focus on emerging and under-recognized artists — a unique niche in the museum world.

The reason for the closure is not surprising.

"It has everything to do with the pandemic," Joan Davidow says. "We were closed for more than a year, and since we reopened, our attendance has been down. On the past few Fridays, always one of our most popular days, we've been the only ones here. The handwriting is on the wall. People aren't coming out like they used to. It's a stark change."

Pre-pandemic, opening events drew anywhere from 150 to 300 people. Post-pandemic, the turnout has not topped 50.

"The pandemic changed us — I think there are people who still aren't coming out," she says.

Prior to opening Site 131, Davidow served as an art critic for KERA and worked for museums and galleries including the Dallas Museum of Art, Arlington Museum of Art, and Dallas Contemporary. A collection of her art is on permanent display at the University of Texas at Dallas.

In its seven years, Site 131 showcased 21 exhibitions featuring 114 artists — 55 female, 58 male — encompassing a diverse mix that included African American, Asian, and Latino artists, with about 40 percent from Texas and 60 percent from the U.S. and abroad.

The current exhibit is Exploring Constructs, with abstractions by mature New York artist Harriet Korman and self-taught Houston sculptor Ronald Llewellyn Jones' hand-tied string sculptures, thanks to New York's Thomas Erben gallery and Houston's Hooks-Epstein Galleries, with additional thanks to SITE131 Foundation for its pivotal support of adventurous exhibitions of new art.

In addition to exhibitions, the gallery led artist talks, community chats, fashion shows, dance classes, educational programming, workshops, and concerts. The goal was to make art "touchable."

"I do feel that I am doing something here that isn't happening elsewhere in town," Joan said in 2016. "I did what comes so naturally to me, which is: let’s look at a piece of art and talk about it together."

One bright spot was their fall 2021 exhibit, Fresh Faces From the Rachofsky Collection, presenting emerging talent from the legendary collection of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky. The exhibit only finally took place after being postponed due to the pandemic more than once. It's among their most important exhibitions.

"It meshed with our entire mission, which has been to find young and new and never-seen art, 'while the paint is still wet,'" Davidow says.

Site 131's closure is not an isolated incident; the Goss Michael Foundation remains "temporarily closed" after two years, and The Reading Room, a small art space near Fair Park, closed in 2021 after 10 years. These represent losses not only in that they provide one less platform for young artists, but also as a symbol of the changes wrought by the pandemic on the way we live and interact.

"We don't know how things are going to roll out, but I think it's such a loss that we're not being with each other and not sharing responses communally," Davidow says.

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RIP Albert

Colorful and iconoclastic Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth dies at 70

Courtesy

Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth

Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth, known for his jubilant creativity which he displayed in a wide range of media, died on February 18; he was 70 years old. According to friends, he suffered a heart attack.

Scherbarth's myriad "canvases" ranged from printmaking to furniture to steel and metal working. He was a colorful presence in the Dallas art scene with a shock of thick hair that stood tall, definitive horn-rimmed glasses, and an unfiltered, no-nonsense personal style.

He was also a key figure in The Cedars district: an urban pioneer who settled in the area directly south of downtown Dallas in the early '80s when the neighborhood was a mostly-deserted collection of abandoned warehouses, before it became a major art nexus.

A post by Lee Harvey's, the Cedars District bar, said that "Some people don’t just live in a neighborhood — they leave their mark on it. Albert did exactly that. Through his art, his presence, and his time at our bar, he became part of the story here. We’ll miss him more than we can say. Rest easy Bert."

He was a real character, as well — a stocky physical presence (he played football in high school) who'd fix his stare upon you as if you were a critter to be studied.

One friend said, "I always feel that Albert is going to spring some meta shit on me every time i see him and he rarely disappoints. What a cool cat."

A native of Nebraska, Scherbarth moved to Dallas in 1979 to earn a master's in fine arts at the University of Dallas, Irving. After graduating in 1981, he began teaching in the community college district, including Brookhaven College, Northlake College, University of Texas at Dallas, and the Creative Art Center, as well as at Dallas' Arts Magnet.

Sculpture by Albert Scherbarth which appeared at the State Fair of Texas in 2018.Laura Walters/Facebook

After graduating from art school, he felt the need to do "real" work like his father, and took jobs in construction and woodwork, which helped shape the very physical nature of his art.

He was one of the early and many artists who resided in the Continental Gin Building, where he worked on his designs and commissions, fabricated other artists’ ideas, and helped galleries with installations, crating, and shipping.

Through the years he made furniture, got into fused and cast glass, poured concrete countertops, and painted, including a successful era of doing giant flower paintings. In his latter years, he acquired a welding machine and worked with builders, designers, and architects constructing screens, fences, furniture, and sculptures.

His works around town include a giant wine tree for Fleming Steakhouse in Frisco, and a sculpture named, "Cecil, age 12" up on Henderson Avenue at Capital Street which was was a finalists for the Henderson Art Prize. He also worked on the famed Bowler Hat sculpture in the Cedars.

In an interview with Voyage Dallas, he said, "I’m constantly looking for more meaning and more permanence in the work that I’m doing," and acknowledged that "I’ve been very, very fortunate to get a lot of really great commissions over the years. I’ve sold a lot of work and fallen into great studio situations – large spaces, cheap rent and wonderful landlords. Today, I think my ignorance of all the pitfalls ahead allowed me to storm through life and I have a certain stubbornness, a dogged determination to succeed."

"My grandfathers died before I came of age, my father died, my favorite uncle died so there was not much in the way of male guidance or perspective on how to be a man, so I’ve just kind of made it up on my own, stumbling through, winging it and I’m still alive, amazingly enough."

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