The Window of Prøve Gallery

The above photograph is a view from the inside of Prøve Gallery, located in the Sons of Norway building on Lake Ave. in Downtown Duluth. I love it precisely because it is the art’s (and the artist’s) vantage point on Duluth — the steep slope that is Lake Avenue as it runs down the hillside, spilling its contents over I-35 and into Canal Park. Prøve is situated at the spot that joins the most densely populated areas of Duluth with the most touristy of playgrounds, the joint that places the banks and the exotic pizzas and the homeless shelters in a contact zone.

As an experiment of an art gallery, then, Prøve becomes an opportunity to explore the relationship between art and space. Too often, we presume that place defines art: the rock pile on the Lakewalk is sculpture, while the rock pile in my back yard is at best a mess, or if I’m lucky, “folk art.” If it’s hanging in the Duluth Art Institute, it must be art.

Prøve lets us test another hypothesis: Art is not defined by the space we find it in (institutional spaces or public spaces). Rather, art is defined by the space it creates.

Artwork from Prøve opening on January 13

In this series, for example, the works themselves are not sufficient to be art. In a certain way, what makes this piece art is the way it redefines the wall on which it is hung.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Zach Gorr’s piece (his second piece in a Prøve show): “Cairn 1-5.”

Cairn 1-5.1

Cairn 1-5.2

In this piece, Gorr’s work is not quite a flat wall-hanging, redefining the wall on which it is hung as if the wall were a canvas. The sculpture grows from the wall, as if organically, stepping into the space we share with it. The light and color of these shapes change the space they occupy.

You don’t hang Gorr’s “Cairn 1-5” — you share space with it, and the space you share is the product of art.

Come share this space on Friday, Jan. 13, 7 p.m., at Prøve Gallery.