Etherton Gallery’s “Unpacked” Exhibit

Tehuantepec, Mexico, 1985
©Alex Webb/Magnum Photos, courtesy Etherton Gallery

Summer in Tucson can be pretty brutal. But staying in town has its rewards for those of us tough enough to stick it out. One of the biggest rewards available to us through August 30 is Etherton Gallery’s  Unpacked: The Art Fair at Home exhibit.

On a recent hot summer morning, I sat down with gallery founder and director Terry Etherton in the coolness of his downtown gallery and talked with him about his new exhibit. He explained how Unpacked came about.

“This has been an unusual year for us. We participated in four art fairs in four months. We had to prepare for each art fair in a different way and for a different audience. We had to pack and unpack a lot, and finally we had everything back here in Tucson. We just decided to recreate portions of each of the art fairs into one exhibit in Tucson.”

That means the Unpacked exhibit includes some of the best of the best. A few of the top photographers included in the exhibit are Aaron Siskind, Danny Lyon, Ansel Adams, Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Alex Webb, among others. We also see the work of several Arizona artists, among them Bailey Doogan, David Emitt Adams, Mayme Kratz and Nick Georgiou.

When I asked Etherton if he had a favorite work in the Unpacked exhibit, he paused, clearly having difficulty naming just one or two works. Finally we went to stand before Alex Webb’s Tehuantepec, Mexico, 1985.

The photo shows a group of young boys playing in a Mexican plaza with a cathedral towering in the background. Etherton points out the striking composition of repetitive vertical and horizontal lines, and of the color blue.

“If that shirt were yellow instead of blue,” Etherton said, “it wouldn’t work at all.” Perhaps most arresting is the frozen moment in time caught by the photographer.

“Look at the ball spinning on the boy’s fingers,” Etherton said, “and there on the far left, Webb has captured a basketball just as it passes through the net.”

An entire wall is devoted to Webb’s work in the Unpacked exhibit. Take your time and look closely. There are secrets to be discovered in Webb’s photos. His Istanbul, Turkey, 2001 at first glance appears to be a casual photo of a street scene. Then you realize you are seeing multiple levels of reality in this photo. Taken from inside a barber shop, we see the street outside the shop both directly and also through reflections. People are scurrying by, and shop signs that can be read normally are reversed in reflections. Intriguingly, there’s the image of man, one of those hurrying by on the street, whose reflection was caught at just the right instant in a small mirror on the barber’s work table. That kind of compositional complexity and sheer beauty indicate a real master at work. Webb’s photos are in the interface between photojournalism and fine art.

As we move away, Etherton casually gestured to another Webb photo, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1986. “Multiple layers here, too” he said. Indeed.

Alex Webb was the single artist shown by Etherton at Paris Photo Los Angeles art fair. Paris Photo, one of Europe’s premier art fairs, is based in Paris, France. This year Paris Photo opened a second fair in Los Angeles.

“Paris Photo is very selective.” Etherton said, “We were very pleased to be invited.” He adds, “To this day Los Angeles hasn’t had a high quality art fair, and I think Paris Photo was trying to fill that gap. They largely succeeded.” Paris Photo Los Angeles was the last of the four art fairs in four months for Etherton Gallery. The first was Classic Photographs, also in Los Angeles.

Second was the Palm Springs Art Fair in California.  Etherton took paintings and sculptures to Palm Springs as well as photographs.

“Of the twelve artists we showed,” he said, “ten were from Tucson.” He added, “I wanted to say at this fair, ‘Look how great our artists are!’”

One of the Tucson artists included in the Unpacked exhibit is Nick Georgiou. This took us to Etherton’s other favorite piece in the exhibit, Georgiou’s Wig-O-Rama, a wall sculpture created in honor of Congress Street’s long-standing wig shop by the same name. Georgiou, a New York City transplant to Tucson since 2009, creates unique two and three-dimensional sculptures of hand-stitched recycled books and newspapers. Georgiou’s art was on the cover of the Zocalo, and he was profiled in “Print to Artifact” in the October 2012 issue.

The third art fair for Etherton Gallery in four months was the prestigious AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) in the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Etherton showed a solid selection of work by photographers represented by Etherton Gallery. Then it was back to LA for the Paris Photo exhibit.

Etherton speculated about where he’ll go next. Back to Miami?  To Chicago? That’s not decided yet. What is important is that right now here in Tucson, we have a chance to see a really superior collection in the Unpacked exhibit. Brave the heat, and don’t miss an important art event for the Old Pueblo.

Etherton Gallery, 135 S. 6th Ave., opened in Tucson in 1981 are is considered one of the top ten photography galleries in the United States. Unpacked:The Art Fair at Home is on exhibit through August 30. Learn more at EthertonGallery.com.

Category: Arts