Quick Draw Artist Interview #33: Jared Sable

Quick Draw Artist Interviews are a series of interviews conducted by Otino Corsano using Facebook's IM Chat feature. Spontaneous conversations with international artists and influential members of the art community are recorded and documented specifically for publication on this blog.

Quick: Deny, deny deny. Your issues are unnecessary. No, I will not be changing. And now you’re taking cues from a master bush lawyer who is more controlling than he ever was. And there you have it and there you had it. Parking just briefly on a cold winter’s night to listen to a community radio station for the deeper voice you wish was more recognizable and even more different than yours. Yet it is your own invented words playing on an infinite loop feedback inside your head while everything is much finer now. I’m grateful ~ relaxing with a trusty reserve of Chips Ahoy! found hidden away back in those slats. Saved especially for this very day. Draw: art about art.

Will Gorlitz  "Untitled", signed "For Jared, with much admiration", 1987 , 13" x 17" in.

Jared Sable (Toronto, ON) the owner of the Sable-Castelli Gallery, was an iconic figure in the Canadian art world for over 30 years, representing many of North America's finest contemporary artists. His guidance helped build some of the most important private and public collections in the country.

Barbara Edwards Contemporary, Toronto, recently presented feature works from the collection of the late Jared Sable: a mentor to many in the Canadian and International art communities. This exhibition “Jared Sable Collection” was featured from January 17 to February 22, 2014 and highlighted Sable's own collecting practice, his private commitment to the artists he so publicly supported.

http://becontemporary.com/

http://www.canadianart.ca/tag/sable-castelli-gallery/

Jared Sable

Chat Conversation Start

Today

Otino

7:00pm

I remember Mr. Sable as a tall man. Now I understand it is due to the fact I have photographic memory and one of the only photos of Mr. Sable in my brain's data bank is his portrait by Russell Monk taken for a Canadian Art article (Spring 1996, Volume 13 Number1; p. 72) written by Matthew Hart. The effect is not dissimilar from my experience of seeing Michelangelo’s “David” in the Galleria dell'Academia in Florence and I am not alone given the fact no living person has obtained a primary view of the sculpture.

Mr. Sable was considered a dark horse champion of art to many. Just as other art affiliated greats like Frank Gehry and Jerry Saltz humbly trace back to their early roots as truck drivers, I recall the above article referencing Mr. Sable’s start at the family tile store in Leaside before, and like his colleagues, moving on to more significant art accomplishments.

Jared

1:00pm

God forbid they should call anybody who knows what the *@#% he’s talking about.

Otino

1:00pm

A common criticism of the Canadian Art scene is it perpetually fails the due diligence test with its consistent lack of collective memory. It seems we toss between a self-induced identity of elitist airs and graces - a vision of ourselves as over-saturated with unseen and under-recognized artistic brilliance - and a failure to celebrate accomplishments and careers with a spotlight. Dare even say the fame it deserves.

Recently Toronto gallery director Susan Hobbs celebrated her gallery’s 21^st anniversary and via social media she reminded the art community it would’ve soon been the 50^th anniversary of Carmen Lamanna’s iconic Toronto gallery as well as the silver anniversary of Mr. Lamanna’s death.

In the same post Hobbs shares the outline from a proposal publication declined by The Canada Council in 1990. The working title “The Case of the Carmen Lamanna Gallery: a study on visual art in Canadian culture from 1966 – 1991” was a proposal featuring an all-star editorial team who pitched three important premises with the second, in my view, as the most pressing and poignant:

“A second premise of this study is simply that history must be written if it is to be secured. Without a history, our expanding concerns and identifications cannot find a voice, and clearly will not find an audience.”

Roberto Pellegrnuzzi  "les ecorches, pierre, le & juillet" 1999, 2000,

 black and white photograph, 12.5" x 10.5"

Jared

1:00pm

Where the hell are the kids with the juice? They come in here from the art schools – they’re pathetic! They do what’s curatorially correct. The most boring.

Otino

1:00pm

This was the line evoking action within me. After all and no joke, my art school nickname had been Juice for years. Not only that, if there was anything my art practice stood for it was reinvention to a fault and a disgust for art mag surface styling. Hell, at that initial stage of my art career I wasn’t even on curatorial radar. The idea of pandering to a curatorial vision was an even more distant dream.

So it took me a while to organize an overly meticulous and completely customized portfolio consisting of 4x5 transparencies I had somehow convinced my commercial photography friends to help me produce. If anything I imagined Mr. Sable would be impressed with my obsessive matte cutting and keen use of plastic sleeves.

I went with a white shirt black jacket look - no tie - as I wanted to seem semi-pro yet not overly eager. Riffing off a young cleaned up Chris Burden or Robert Longo seemed to make sense.

Jared

1:00pm

Just wait out there, OK?

Otino

1:00pm

Actually only three extremely brief words were uttered by Mr. Sable during my self-initiated first “interview” and the exchange ended in about 10 seconds.

Jared

1:00pm

Leave that classicism right there, Tony. That classical training, it shows.

Otino

1:00pm

I walked past the gallery assistant’s desk at the front avoiding eye contact. Sable Castelli Gallery was already always a charged and unique environment for me as it was carpeted and I always felt worried about tracking across the perfectly groomed floor. This was far before Jessica Stockholder’s context remodelIing in 2004.

I imagined I should have called ahead and made an appointment. I used to be reminded of Toronto when I lived in Los Angeles by visiting Karyn Lovegrove’s original gallery in Wilshire where the floor was even whiter than the walls. Karyn herself recently admitted to me she always thinks fondly of her white floor too especially now that she’s moved on to a new exclusive, private and corporate art advisor role.

Jared

1:00pm

I’ll be right with you.

Otino

1:00pm

The memory of my first encounter with Canada’s premiere art dealer made lasting impressions on my art practice. I moved from painting to performance work. My social skills improved. During graduate school I helped John Knight organize a special lecture series titled “My Dealer” and by the time the roster was set for the term, Los Angeles gallerists not on the list were calling the University requesting to be added. My job was also to greet, welcome and mildly entertain each of the special guests before show time where I would formally introduce them to the campus crowd.

None were as edgy as Jared although one other Wilshire dealer snubbed me almost as rapidly with a mostly endearing “Cold City Storage” line upon hearing of my hometown origins.

Melvin Charney " better if they think they are going to a farm, no. 3", 1983-85,

 oil pastel on gelatin silver print, 25" x 55"

Jared

1:00pm

I don’t suffer fools gladly, OK? I’m just me. I don’t think I have a short temper: I have a short attention span.

Otino

1:00pm

My fondest recollection from this lecture series was having the opportunity to meet Mr. Irvine Blum, director of the Ferus Gallery from 1958 to 1967. Mr. Blum spoke fondly of hosting Andy Warhol’s first West Coast show and leading a peaceful semi-retired life of finding a few remaining key works for “airport hanger” collectors.

Although Jared wasn’t the first to show Warhol in Toronto, his legacy is linked to his early partnership with New York art dealer legend Leo Castelli. Sable rendered Toronto an International city before the phrase was proposed as a contemporary municipal wish.

Jared

1:00pm

Danby’s art is of the calendar variety; sentimental, slick and cloying to the point of nausea.

Otino

1:00pm

With this direct link to New York Mr. Sable began his life’s work in dedicating his Hazelton Avenue space to the most significant art of our modern era including early shows featuring the work of Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Richard Artschwager, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella, Richard Serra, Lawrence Weiner, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Eric Fischl.

Eric Fischl  "Untitled", 1987 , oil on glassine, 30.5" x 21.75"

The move to showcase Canadian Art through the eighties could not have arrived at a better time for art in this country as the potential for Canadian artists to reach a greater stage both at home and abroad began to materialize in house.

Seen 1:00pm

Jared

1:00pm

An era of Rococo elegance may once again be with us.

Marianna Gartner  "Young Boys in April", 1998 , oil on canvas, 38" x 54"

Otino

1:00pm

I’m driving to a handful of art receptions tonight wearing a white shirt with purple and yellow tie. I’m listening to Les Twins music and surprisingly thinking of Los Angeles and Jared at the same time.

One of my early, video based performance pieces I created in LA was filmed at the commercially recognizable 2^nd Street Tunnel in downtown Los Angeles. In the granular video, I walk from in front of a camera stationed at the Figueroa Street opening of the tunnel, through the center of the highly reflective thoroughfare until I literally disappear into the horizon by the time I reach the Hill Street southeast end.

Jared

1:00pm

Artists such as Ron Martin display only their arrogance by exposing vapid colour graphs to the public view.

Otino

1:00pm

When I left Sable Castelli Gallery on that first failed portfolio visit I remember being blinded by an unexpectedly bright early summer sun. The only black jacket I owned was quite thick - of the fall synthetic wool variety - and so I remember beginning to feel hot as I walked north on Hazelton Ave to Davenport. I also recall walking west to Avenue Road yet the memory of walking northbound up the steep hill to St. Clair Avenue now escapes me.

However, I do distinctly remember running into a friend on this retreating trek and I must have been quite dehydrated by that time since after initial exchange of art talk I began to tell him about a dream I had the night before of me walking around in a garbage bag fashioned into a make-shift rain coat. You know – when you cut out a hole at the top to fit a head through and two slots at each of the sides for arms.

Jared

1:00pm

While the Guggenhiem’s tribute to Roy Lichtenstein did nothing but raise disturbing questions as to his particular talents, MoMA’s show accomplished the exact opposite by firmly establishing Oldenburg, once and for all, as the most inventive mind of our age.

Otino

1:00pm

I arrive at gallery #1 of tonight’s tour and am reunited with a famous painter friend. He calls me Valentino and we smile sincerely at one another because messing up people's names is always relatively amusing among sympathetic friends. I’m not sure if I was imposing on his art appreciation space although everything appeared alright between us.

Tony Scherman " Osso Bucco", 2000 , encaustic on canvas, 24" x 24"

This is why Mr. Sable was invaluable to my art. I was never left guessing.

I’m a fan of German philosophy of the Pragmatist variety and always admired the work of Jürgen Habermas especially in regards to his notion of an ideal speech situation.

One part heart, the other all testicles.

Tony Scherman " Study for the French Revolution", 199,

5 encaustic and crayon on paper, 41" x 36"

Jared

1:00pm

These walls are very competitive. Whenever you see a group show here, it means my artists haven’t come through.

Otino

1:00pm

I arrive at gallery #2 of tonight’s tour and am reunited with another artist who also happens to be a best friend. We talk about starting up collaborative work yet again and absolutely nothing has changed between us after all these years.

Jared

1:00pm

Do I say, “Paint blue instead of red”? No.

Otino

1:00pm

Gallery #3 involves yet another reunion. This time the meeting is with a New York artist who I see approximately every two years whenever he exhibits in town. I reminisce about the time I visited his studio and the missed opportunity in the form of a new painting of his I was thinking of buying at the time.

The next thing I know I’m introduced to the gallery owner and we are in the back office where he pulls out purportedly the very same artwork. It’s not. As he searchs his website database I look around the art-filled space and truthfully mention I respect his stable of artists.

I suddenly feel pangs: longing for connoisseurship.

Jared

1:00pm

Do I say, ‘Why does that line die in front of me?’ Yes! It’s not that I tell them how to paint, but damn it, if a line goes limp…? And if I’m wrong, so what? It starts a dialogue.

Ric Evans " Jared", 1980-95 , oil on paper, 23" x 17.5"

Otino

1:00pm

There are no crosswords here.

I exit the back room with sincere pleasantries and find myself staring at a crowd forming: a wall of posturing artists navigating the space. They long for me to dispense unedited commentary yet I’m not feeling as generous. Or maybe I am generous - a young artist, recent MFA grad mentions he wants to visit gallery #2 and I oblige by offering a ride over as it is on my way back home.

Betty Goodwin  "A blue bone in the back of my throat", 1984 

graphite and mixed media on paper, 26.25" x 31"

Jared

1:00pm

I will sometimes argue just to be on the side of the devil.

Otino

1:00pm

The young artist is talented. I once started an interview with him that was never completed. I can have a knack for picking top prospects and if life was fair this kid would be a winner. He is concerned about his future having just completed his MFA.

I drive past the gallery (classic Otino fail) and suddenly we are both more concerned about this more timely and practical matter. I pull to the curb and he opens the door as if to pull an action film stunt. It’s really cold out tonight and so I slowly reverse to get him closer to the gallery.

Jared

1:00pm

Very taut, Very bratty.

David Craven  "Try It", signed "For Jared", 2009 , oil and resin on board, 14" x 10"

Otino

1:00pm

I think I may have returned to Sable Castelli Gallery the next Saturday after my first failure to launch; yet the memory is far cloudier. I think I remember Mr. Sable walking out of his corner office and leaving the gallery soon after I entered; however this may have been a product of déjà vu yet again like the garbage bag raincoat dream. All I do remember clearly was the art I saw was really good. It always was.

Jared

1:00pm

Other people have wet dreams. I hang shows.

Howard Lonn  "Untitled", 2001,  charcoal and shellac on paper, 23" x 17.5"

Otino

1:00pm

My mom calls me the other day. She is planning to vacation in Florida with my sister in a week or two and asks me if I could visit my Dad in the nursing home and make sure he is clean shaven while she is away. The request is served as a regular main course with a heavy heaping of guilt sauce.

Will Gorlitz  "Untitled", 1989,  india ink on inside of book cover, 14.5" x 18"

My Dad is shrinking like Ron Mueck. I move his legs straight and under the covers so his feet can stay warm and, as with every visit, he is devising plans to break out of the place. I’m always the key accomplice to drive him back home in the great get away scenario. As I leave he makes me make him promises I know I can’t keep and sensing my automated robot replies he brands an old world saying from the core of his being as retaliation. Directly translated it sounds something like “Saying Thanks is not required among family members”; yet with his refined and calculated intonation and emphasis it is crafted into a clear dig and more like “Family members are always thankless.”

Somehow I respect the fact he has not changed. His durability is admirable and he follows a noble self-prescribed code. Even his blind abuse is far less evil and calculated than I have experienced in other relations.

Will Gorlitz  "From Genre VI", 1984,  oil on canvas, 24" x 35"

Jared

1:00pm

I want that hot one placed there. That’s mean. Whatever else we do that picture stays right there.

Otino

1:00pm

My lucky break emerged before grad school. I’m installing work for my first exhibition in a posh Hazelton gallery and Jared walks in. He has changed and it’s straight up uncanny. He tells me he should have signed me first. I’m feeling like Julian Schnabel.

Jared

1:00pm

It’s totally democratic. I used to hang a show entirely myself. The artist always had the right to change it. They never did.

Otino

1:00pm

After grad school I had the good fortune of meeting a kind Toronto collector via a Los Angeles acquaintance. After a few introductory discussions he offers to introduce me to a couple of Toronto gallery directors. When he asks me where I would like to show I list Sable’s Gallery first, half as a long shot wish for the stars, yet without hesitation. It turns out he was a long time friend of Jared.

Jared

1:00pm

We knew this one would be a tough one to hang. These demand a lot of looking. People want an art show to be like People magazine. These aren’t like that. You have to look at them. It’s much more difficult to sell non-objective work. Also it doesn’t reproduce well, so a newspaper ad tells you nothing.

Ric Evans , Untitled, 1994 , oil on canvas, approx. 9" x 9"

Otino

1:00pm

Sitting in Mr. Sable’s office was both eerie and exhilarating. There were the crossword puzzles on his desk again. I told him I paint crossword puzzles inspired by Warhol’s early black and white, pre-Pop works. I found myself telling him Irving Blum stories. I didn’t have to be signed that day. I finally made it as an artist.

Jared

1:00pm

Good question.

Betty Goodwin " Study for Berlin Project", 1982,  oil on vellum paper, 20.75" x 17"

Otino

1:00pm

When I heard Sable Castelli Gallery was closing I remember mourning a little, alone in a shared Distillery District studio.

Mentorship is not really about choice. It is more like people discovering each other.

Jared

1:00pm

Another one who buys art with her ears. We’re dinosaurs. The art’s getting better, sales are going down.

Otino

1:00pm

It is unfortunate art magazines in this country rarely feature portraits of artists on the cover anymore. I’m old enough to remember when international Canadian Art stars were actually being created on home turf – for Canadians. Accordingly and in my view, artworks can take second seat to the individuals who produced them. Those who facilitated and nurtured this production remain unforgettable.