Let's be blunt: When I first heard that this year's Gala Corina would be held not in a West Tampa cigar factory or downtown warehouse but in a former call-center-turned-medical-office in South Tampa instead, the palm of my hand went flat up against my forehead. "Why mess with the Gala 'brand' (est. 1999)?" I wondered. A major part of the buzz that precedes the annual art party has been the sense of anticipation surrounding the site: usually a dilapidated historical building restored by volunteers to semi-habitable conditions.
Well, a visit last week to this year's site more or less squelched my doubts. The locale may feel less turn-of-the-century industrial cathedral than 1970s suburban hermitage, but there's no mistaking the bigger-than-big energy that's percolating inside. Even as I walked through the unfinished space where artists were beginning to hang their work last Friday, a note of excitement danced through the maze of cubby-like offices converted to temporary art galleries. Somehow Gala manages a near miraculous transformation each year. Does it really matter if the building isn't historic?
Last year the volunteer group, which consists of board members and exhibiting artists, went above and beyond the call of duty. Nesting in an unused former paper mill donated by a law firm, they jerry-rigged electricity, built "walls" and a stage, and attempted to cool the whole place off with industrial fans.
This year, they weren't as lucky in landing a workable space. One cigar factory the group briefly considered "had death trap written all over it," says Amy Miller, a Gala board member who juggles PR and other responsibilities. The time crunch was on, and the group needed a building. With its labyrinth of rooms and ready electricity, the South Tampa office building won them over. Windows for a bar were fashioned by sawing holes in walls; donated Freon and labor made A/C a tantalizing reality.
And so the legend continues, albeit in a slightly different form.
Only at Gala will you find upward of 130 local artists, including photographers, painters, sculptors and fashion designers in a lively free-for-all exhibition. Only at Gala will you find Carol Cleere's ethereal digital "paintings" hanging in the same space as Maria Saraceno's provocative wire cage dress or Jim Reiman's striking lightbox nudes; only here will you discover the silk-screened collages of Laura Mae Dooris (a recent transplant from New Orleans) one moment and be accosted by a babelicious model in an original Ivanka Ska outfit the next. These sorts of wonderfully unusual juxtapositions only make sense in the context of Gala — and they make it one of the best local art events you'll go to this year.
A democratic approach to culling artists for the show remains Gala's trademark. The 20-plus board members who run the nonprofit behind the party are an unassuming bunch: art lovers and artists with a generous eye. There's not much jockeying or competition for the show's slots — most artists who submit slides (i.e., jpegs) through Gala's website wind up with a wall or two to decorate in the show.
Photographer Dave Gutcher is a newbie who joined up after attending a previous Gala. The owner of Gutcher's Quickprint in Tampa has been a photographer for only a year and a half, and he's counting his lucky stars that a wall full of his Tampa landscapes will be part of Gala Corina this year. "I went one year, and it was very interesting to say the least," Gutcher says. "It was amazing how when you say the word 'art, what an extremely broad spectrum it is."
Maria Saraceno is one of the old guard; the Gala experience keeps drawing her back in. This year, she's showing two different projects, a life-size dress made of coiled wire dangling above a pool of concrete lips and an indoor landscape of painted palm tree seed pods arranged along the floor and ceiling like stalagmites and stalactites. "The energy is fantastic," Saraceno says. "The fact that all these artists come together to put the show up is just incredible."
And Gala always offers an opportunity for a philanthropist — the donor of the building — to shine briefly. This year, it's Tampa ophthalmologist Bernard R. Perez and his brother, nephrologist Don J. Perez. Donating their family's building to house an art event in art-deficient South Tampa was a no-brainer, says Bernard Perez. "It's the heart of the area, but there's no art," he says. "What makes society something is the culture and arts."
Sketchbook
If you've ever thought I'm a jerk for critiquing a local artist or institution, you should check out Jerry Saltz's writing in New York. In September, the former Village Voice art critic called for the firing of Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and overlord of the Guggenheim empire in a much-talked-about article. And, frankly, he can do that because he's Jerry Saltz: experienced, insightful, brilliant, eminently readable and, well, ballsy.
Saltz is scheduled to give a lecture Tues., Nov. 6 at the University of South Florida (7 p.m. in Theater 1, with a reception beforehand at 5:30), as part of a series of visits by prominent critics. The last was Las Vegas critic and educator Dave Hickey in February, who wasted no time in taking aim at institutionalized arts education and the out-of-control art market. (Both critics served on the team that picked the installations that will play a starring role in the 2009 Lights On Tampa.) Like Hickey, Saltz shares a commitment to writing art criticism accessible not just to cloistered academics but to ordinary mortals, too.
This article appears in Oct 31 – Nov 6, 2007.