Long-time trawlers of Auckland galleries may find the surrounds of City Art Rooms familiar, yet noticeably different from previous visits to the space. That’s due to passionate gallerists carrying on a 12 year tradition - occupying 28 Lorne St’s first floor and establishing their particular vision of contemporary art. Thousands, if not millions of hammered nails later, director Kylie Sanderson has taken up the torch held by previous galleries Edmiston Duke, Judith Anderson (now based in Napier), and Gregory Flint.
Perhaps a tenacious spirit had possessed these owners in staking out this particular 1930s character building (or maybe its proximity to the Auckland Art Gallery is the clincher). Fortunately, a new gallery has emerged, and with it, a new vigor. The story of City Art Rooms is simple: A (not so) Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy (not very) Far Far Away, an ambitious art lover, with very limited startup capital, launched a tiny gallery further up on Lorne St under the name ‘Artigiano.’
Not much larger than your average convenience kiosk, rookie Kylie Sanderson began showing intimate works meeting a singular criterion: she liked it. This intuitive and open process led to an astute, self-trained eye that would allow her to grow the business over a few years into the eponymous Sanderson Contemporary Art, now established and re-located to a generous venue in Parnell.
City Art Rooms was developed in June of 2007 as a second, city-based venue. Here, projects could expand, illuminate, protrude, explode. The dimensions of the space outsized even Sanderson, allowing an opportunity to diversify the offering of shows and artists, while retaining a philosophy of openness, inclusion, and education that had developed at the sister gallery over the years. Lorne St had recently finished an extensive makeover, offering an opportunity to inhabit an old art haunt and allowing Kylie to return to her ‘roots.’
Renovations on the building began immediately – walls knocked out, gib board and plaster slathered over crumbling paint. The space was re-imagined, and its potential as a flexible cube explored.
Now six months into its 2007 programme, the gallery has discovered its direction, realizing that the strongest feature of City Art Rooms is its flexibility and openness. In the first year or two of the gallery, as new devotees and supporters are established, one could argue the gallery has nothing to lose. It should reach out there, be ambitious, provoke and inform, rather than develop a formulaic house style.