Bloodied by the Cutting Edge
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Klein, who’s 57, doesn’t want to be anything but positive about this: he doesn’t blame his customers or his artists. He says the closing was set in motion two years ago, when he had a “heart incident” and acquired a stent. His doctor told him to eliminate stress from his life, and “this business is hand-to-mouth,” he says. “You never know if next month you’re going to have a surplus of money in your pocket or you’re going to be trying to figure out how to keep the doors open.” At the same time he began fiddling with the gallery’s focus. Artists he admires–like sculptor Lincoln Schatz and painter Marlena Novak–were going from metal and canvas to computer. He wanted to go with them and thought he could bring his customers along, “get them to transition from static objects like painting and sculpture to moving objects–video, digital art, more expansive ideas,” he says. Now he thinks he got “too far ahead of the curve” for his collectors: “I can’t sell what I don’t like, but I was having trouble selling what I do like.” His last show will open in March; the gallery will close in mid-May. After that, Klein says, he’d like to run an aggressive little museum for a Chicago college–if it will pay him a salary for doing it.
Has Anybody Seen the Athenaeum?
Joel Leib thought he was taking Ten in One to the next level when he moved it to New York nearly five years ago, but when his lease there ran out earlier this month the 14-year-old gallery closed. “It wasn’t as much fun as it used to be,” Leib says. “If I ever did it again, I’d get a partner. New York is so competitive. You have to be out and about in the evenings, and I just wanted to come home and be with my daughter.” The last of the local gallery upstarts known collectively as Uncomfortable Spaces (they included Beret International, Tough, and MWMWM), Ten in One provided New York exposure for Chicago artists including John Spear, Tom Denlinger, and Carol Jackson. But Leib says he got burned when other artists used him as a stepping-stone to bigger dealers. “I think you need a lot of money to stay in the game here,” he says, “but even more money wouldn’t assure that you could hang on to talent once they develop a buzz.” Next up for him: a business where the customers, at least, are likely to be loyal. While Ten in One was going down the drain, Leib’s wife, Laura Bilyeu, launched the Four Paws Club, hailed by New York magazine in ’02 as the city’s hottest pet accessory shop. Maybe he should have tried those vintage pooch coats and kosher doggy bones in the gallery.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jim Newberry.
