October 14, 2004 – May 2, 2005
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Perimeter Gallery: Dick Wickman, artist; Neil Goodman, artist; Frank Paluch, director.
Photographed at Perimeter Gallery, Chicago
Perimeter Gallery
Brad Lynch designed the Perimeter Gallery space in Chicago's River North district in 1996. In a sense, the project served as a trial run for the Racine Art Museum. Gallery director Frank Paluch has known Karen Johnson Boyd, the gallery's owner, since the early 1970s, and he has known RAM director and curator Bruce Pepich since the early 1980s. The three share a devotion to the mission of promoting contemporary craft and craft artists. The gallery devotes much of its space to ceramics and fiber art, in addition to paintings and works on paper. Artists that Paluch represents have shown at the Racine Art Museum, including a recent show of work by John McQueen and an upcoming show on Toshiko Takawzu.
RAM creates a new opportunity for the artists. For example, Toshi Takaezu gave a lot of large ceramic pieces to the Racine Art Museum that are seven feet high. When they were in the galleries at the Wustum, which have 9-foot ceilings, the work looked like it was being compressed. If you put it in a space that has a 2-story atrium or a 13-foot ceiling, as RAM does, the things really expand and come to life. The museum certainly provides artists with an opportunity to do larger things, in terms of size, but I think a larger space also makes the pieces look more dynamic.—Frank Paluch