Text B Contemporary art galleries

Notes:

1. for-profit – заради прибутку

2. second-tier – другорядній

3. charity – благодійність

4. urban – місцевий

5. free – безкоштовний

6. real estate – нерухомість

7. affordable - доступний

 

Viewers of Jonas Burgert's work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado.

A contemporary art gallery is a place where contemporary art is shown for exhibition and/or for sale. The term "art gallery" is commonly used to mean art museum (especially in British English), the rooms displaying art in any museum, or in the original sense, of any large or long room.

A contemporary gallery is commercial or privately-funded and usually has a second-tier status positioned between the first-tier status of a national, state-run or corporate museum, and the third-tier of minor galleries which include artist-run galleries, artist's co-operatives.

Commercial galleries are for-profit, privately owned businesses dealing in artworks by contemporary artists. Galleries run for the public good by cities, churches, art collectives, not-for-profit organizations, and local or national governments are usually termed Non-Profit Galleries. Many of these, such as the Tate Gallery have an aspect of charity.

Contemporary art galleries are often established together in urban centers such as the Chelsea district of New York, widely considered to be the center of the American contemporary art world. Most large urban areas have several art galleries. Contemporary art galleries are usually free and open to the public, however some are semi-private, more exclusive, and by appointment only.

Curators often create group shows that say something about contemporary issues or a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries often choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly. Some have a narrow focus while others are more eclectic.

Although primarily concerned with providing a space to show works of visual art, art galleries are sometimes used to host other artistic activities, such as music concerts, poetry readings, or performances, which are considered performance art and at other times theatre. While many galleries exhibit painting and sculpture of all types and movements like Abstract expressionism, Pop Art, Photo realism, Color Field, Minimalism, Lyrical Abstraction, Realism, and Postminimalism etc. Conversely, some works of contemporary art are not shown in a gallery. Land art, performance art, internet art, mail art and installation art and other emerging forms also often exist outside a gallery.

Galleries tend to cluster in certain neighbourhoods within cosmopolitan cities for economic and practical reasons, mainly that it is possible for the buyers and general public to view more art if they can travel by foot. In the past galleries have tended to cluster in neighbourhoods with affordable real-estate due to the unprofitable nature of the business. However in the 21st c. art galleries are strongly associated with the process of gentrification, and e.g. prime real estate for Chelsea galleries is not affordable for unprofitable galleries.

 

Exercise 18. Match the word combinations in column A with their equivalents in column B: