This morning on Urban Jacksonville Weekly (9:30am) we’ll talk to Kyle Lemstrom about SUPER WONDERFUL a new gallery opening in San Marco this month.

It’s the latest in a string of art galleries popping up in empty commercial spaces around the city. Along with Nullspace Gallery and 229 Hogan (and many more I won’t mention here) SUPER WONDERFUL begs the question are temporary art spaces good for art in Jacksonville?

A recent Washington Post article had this to say:

Brilliant marketing for developers. But bad PR for art? One-offs forge dicey synaptic connections in the public mind: They reinforce the “art as decor” paradigm, divorcing artists from their highest calling — creating work that challenges social and political norms. On art event nights, artists become another kind of interior decorator.

Why Pop-Up Art Galleries Are Good for Jacksonville

Please be sure to add your own reasons why they are good or bad

1. It creates an additional cultural event, i.e. an excuse to go out and have fun
2. Gallery shows outside the gallery are much more fun and tend to be more creative with space and subject material
3. Another opportunity for artists to sell more work, gain recognition and once again, sell more work, gain recognition…
4. Provides good marketing and PR for the property itself and for the company offering the property
5. Provides experience for gallery operators. Throwing a show in a non-gallery setting is much more challenging

Forging dicey synaptic connections in the public mind”? C’mon! This may be the case in D.C. which surely has a much more developed art community, but in Jacksonville it’s a welcome sight. The Pinkline Project points out

Since the days of the Salon des Refusés in the early 1800s when artists who weren’t selected for the official Paris Salon organized their own exhibit to show their work, artists have been finding ways to show their work somehow some way.

Back to SUPER WONDERFUL, it has the potential to be the second coming of SEE SAW SPACE, one of the first pop-up galleries I blogged about on Urban Jacksonville. The artists in the first SUPER WONDERFUL show (Friday, February 12th) are certainly representative of a few SEE SAW alumni: Tonya Lee, Jen Morgan, Dustin Harewood, Matt Allison, Clay Doran, Barrett Fiser and Kyle Lemstrom.

I don’t have all the details of the first SUPER WONDERFUL like time and location. I’m sure that information will be revealed in the podcast and I’ll post it here or as soon as I find out.

I want to plug another pop-up gallery event this Friday at Underbelly in 5 Points. For February’s 1st Friday, Jim Draper will be having a gallery show called Undraped. DJ Nick Fresh will be DJing from 6-9 followed by me from 9-close in the backyard treehouse. If you haven’t been to Underbelly yet, please come hangout.