this is outside
an interview by leah triplett harrington for the rib
region > north adams, massachusetts
may 15, 2018
Artists and designers come to Outside, a storefront gallery in downtown North Adams, to expand and actualize an idea. Owners Mandy Johnson & James Jarzyniecki came to North Adams by way of New York in search of space. We spoke to Mandy and James about how the North Adams space effects the artist they show, North Adams's relationship to Mass MOCA, and how they will maintain Outside as a space for incubation.
Installation shot, Life in Velocity Gradients, Katie Bullock, November 4 - December 18, 2017 at Outside
What’s Outside’s focus?
Mandy Johnson: Outside focuses on solo exhibitions of contemporary art and design, with a particular emphasis on highlighting unique intersections between art, design, and fabrication.
James Jarzyniecki: We also try to create a counterpoint to the prototypical commercial gallery setting and provide a platform to realize ideas that otherwise might not be explored in that context.
How’d you end up in North Adams? How does Outside respond to its place in Western Mass?
MJ: We both have been visiting North Adams regularly for the past 10 years, though what led us to ultimately move here ironically began when we moved to New York City. We had been fortunate to always have access to studio space, but when we moved to Brooklyn we didn’t have the same access, so it initially came about kind of informally through a search for space in a place we liked to spend our time. A few years later, when we began taking steps to start our own business, the permanent move to North Adams just sort of happened.
JJ: Gaining that studio space here also meant access to everything surrounding it –the largest contemporary art museum in the United States (Mass MoCA), the ecology and beautiful landscape in the area. It provided things that the city wasn’t able to give in the same way.
MJ: It’s hard not to be inspired by visiting this area, especially if it’s for the first time, which for a lot of our artists it is. Much of the artwork produced by our artists – either for exhibitions in our space or in projects they create moving forward – tends to have a thread from their experience in traveling here and getting to know the place.
JJ: We love when the exhibitions respond to the specific spatial condition of our gallery: the windows looking toward to the north side of downtown, which is the only historic part of main street that still exists, and the strange proportions and natural light conditions of the interior space.
Installation shot, Pieces from Pictures, Elizabeth Corkery, July 7th – Sept 4th, 2017 at Outside.
How does Outside relate to the local community in North Adams as well as global art world?
MJ: North Adams is such an interesting place to be, especially now, because it is simultaneously so interconnected to the global art world and yet completely outside of it. We love that this community allows for the opportunity to test ideas and experiment with works-in progress, and we enjoy putting on exhibitions to reflect that. For some of our artists that means the chance to realize a project that has lived in their mind but hasn’t had the time or space to develop, for others it can be the chance to show a side to their art practice that wouldn’t fit in a different type of context.
JJ: We also understand that we are coming into a context that has had a local art community even before Mass MoCA opened. A major reason why we continue working to keep outside going, even though it began as a temporary project, is because of the support and strength of the community we’ve encountered here. North Adams has attracted truly amazing and talented people who have lived here for quite some time, and that community showing such support for the gallery early on was a big reason in why we felt this is something worth continuing and being a part of.
What’s been your most significant challenge since opening?
JJ: One of the biggest challenges we faced early on is realizing the specifics of the art-buying context we are engaged with. If we were to exist and keep the project going based on a commercial gallery model, we would have to choose artwork and exhibitions based on that criteria, which is not the project we set out to create.
MJ: As with any creative project or small business, the biggest ongoing challenge is how can you be sustainable, and continue to grow and evolve in a direction that matches your interest and intent and benefits the artists and the community you engage with.
Installation shots (title image included), The house your road ends on, Cal Siegel, March 3rd – April 28th at Outside.
Tell us about your current show. How does that reflect your mission to further conversations at the intersections of art, architecture, design, and fabrication?
MJ: Our current show features new work by Cal Sigel and is called ‘The house your road ends on’. Cal uses photography, drawing and sculpture to examine cultural relationships between architecture and place – primarily by distorting the familiar form of a house. I think especially for those who know James and I are architects, this exhibition seems to be the most obviously architectural because of its visual form, but Cal’s work engages with conversations at the intersections of art, architecture and fabrication in much more subtle and compelling ways. The primary elements at play throughout his show are proportion, scale and perspective, and he plays with how to distort those elements in a way that captures your attention and questions how you perceive your environment. His work engages with cultural and spatial themes, but in a very material and tactile way. Showcasing these intersections between many creative practices opens new avenues for engaging with art, and makes it more accessible in a way. There is a narrative and a history in the content, a spatial experience in the installation, and a story behind the materials and methods to create the work.
JJ: A specific piece from his show is an installation hung on the gallery’s façade that explodes one of his works into the space. It recreates the play with perspective and form in his photographs and sculpture, but is made into something you can walk around, inhabit, and view from the exterior. It’s an interesting framework in which the gallery and his installation can reach outside of itself.
Installation shot, Time Is No Longer What We Know It to Be, Rob Trumbour, March 25 – May 6, 2017 at Outside.
What are your long-term goals, and how do you plan on achieving them?
JJ: In the beginning, outside was conceived as a temporary project with a finite time frame in a specific space. Now, two years later and in the context of beginning our third season, we’re looking to expand outside with multiple types of projects and to engage with downtown North Adams in new ways.
MJ: One of our hopes for the future is to continue the model of collaboration that we’ve started. There are specifics of where we are – from the nuances of our actual space to the community we are in – that we love to engage with. And then we love to reach outside of that context and bring in ideas, people and communities that may otherwise not have been here in this way. Most recently, we’ve taken steps to become a fiscally sponsored non-profit, which is exciting because it will allow us to fundraise towards future goals of expanded programming, like having more concerts, events, new exhibitions and commissioned projects that can exist outside the physical gallery.
Outside is a storefront gallery for contemporary art and design located in downtown North Adams, MA.
Outside is dedicated to providing a platform for artists and designers to develop and realize a complete project or idea, and to providing all exhibitions free and open to the public. Central to this mission is an interest in expanding and showcasing the intersections between art, architecture, design and fabrication. Outside presents and publishes focused exhibitions of early to mid career artists, designers and makers.
Outside is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.
thisisoutside.com
10 Ashland
North Adams, Massachusetts
outside@thisisoutside.com
All images courtesy Outside..
REGION
A comprehensive feature on any state, area, or city that lacks mainstream coverage. Region considers the various factors that influence a particular art scene or art-making community, and how it sustains itself. Region also includes profiles of individuals influencing the area (be they curators, writers, artists, professors, etc.), and is always written by people familiar with the topography of the region’s art community. It can include interviews, op-eds, or dialogue in man other forms. Region aims to demystify specific art scenes for interested artists, educators, dealers, curators, advocates, and everything in-between.