The UB Art Gallery, Center For the Arts seems to be elusive for most city dwellers who have a host of other galleries at their fingertips, or at least just a quick bike ride away. The building is a stony white and open structure planted in Amherst, just off of Millersport Highway and a mere ten minutes from its sister city campus. The artists that exhibit in the corridors are often in high demand throughout the country and are willing to swing by Buffalo for a show at the prestigious educational institute. Each opening night, the UB Art Gallery commands a fantastic turnout, with viewers coming from all over Western New York to peruse the exhibition floor and sip on the great talent both founded and emerging. It’s thanks to curator Sandra Firmin that the Gallery has not altogether escaped Buffalo’s mind.
When I met with Firmin last week, I was unable to get over her vibrancy, she is youthful and alive with dedication and eccentricity. I had assumed I would be meeting with a woman in her mid-fifties who had progressed from a discipline in the Fine Arts Department to the position in the gallery. With her reach into such an impressive artist pool, it is hard to believe that Sandra Firmin has only been curating for a few years. “I am originally from Colorado and when I was in undergrad at the University of Denver studying sociology, I started hanging out with the artists and really enjoyed what they did,” Firmin told me. “I changed my major to Fine Arts and very quickly realized I liked hanging out with the artist but really didn’t have what it takes myself. I am so respectful of artists because they’re constantly putting themselves out there, putting their ideas out there and that’s a gutsy thing to do. I am just not that gutsy–or creative for that matter! I took a class with the curator of the Denver Art Museum, and that’s when I realized I could be in the arts without being an artist. I loved the idea of being a conduit or facilitator, helping them to realize their visions. I went on to Bard College where I joined the Curatorial Masters program. From there I went on to Philly and then landed in Buffalo after applying to this job!”
She entered into her current position with the hope of involving the artist with the community so that they may learn from each exhibit, as well as enjoying the aesthetic of the artist. When she proposed the idea of an artist residency program, Firmin insisted the artists be given an empty space that was at all times accessible to the general public, This way each artist could interact with other people and answer questions about the process. She feels that an important facet to the arts industry is an ability to speak intelligently about the goal of a project and how the work affects everything and everyone in its surrounding environment. These artists are not chosen at random, nor do they typically submit portfolios, instead Firmin often seeks them out. “I do a lot of research, read the magazines, go to New York and Toronto a lot and do studio visits in the region. Basically, I want to select an artist who wants to do the residency program as well as engage the public and have more that type of personality,” stated Firmin.
What makes Sandra’s curatorial methods noteworthy is her willingness to give up control of curating. While she always plays an important role in every exhibition, she tells me that she enjoys seeing what other members of UB’s staff come up with. “It all depends on the exhibition, but because we’re a University art gallery I try to tap into different departments and really utilize the professors. We’ve done projects with theater and dance, so maybe there would be an educational component related to the same. With solo exhibitions, I want to tap into new and different disciplines that the community can resource. For example, Paul Sargent’s exhibition appealed to art lovers as well as environmentalists. Professors from the University curate these exhibitions from time to time for diversity.” There are approximately three major exhibitions each year and four to six exhibitions in the smaller, second floor gallery.
The UB Art Gallery has leverage with such a great curator on staff, but it is also one of the most unusual exhibition halls to be found in Western New York. The Lightwell Gallery is a two story, columnar room that was once described at “vertiginous.” When UB hosts an exhibition in the Lightwell Gallery, artists have the challenge of working at an ‘unprecedented scale’, building an installation to its 663 square foot, 40′ high measurements. “This is a unique, larger space that Alberto Rey was able to use for his installation; an opportunity he may not have had at any other local gallery,” Firmin says. “You can access the work shown here via balcony on the second floor or [from] the first floor. It’s a space where I commission artists to respond directly to it. It’s huge, you can’t just hang a painting in here.”
The next exhibit to take place at this impressive gallery is a tribute to Lewiston’s Artpark and the artists who have presented there. “It’s an exhibition I’ve been working on for six years that will be artists’ projects from 1974 to 1984, commissioned by ArtPark. ArtPark was an artist residency program that commissioned temporary work, not only sculpture, but a lot of performances and activities. They had this giant installation that I believe was taken down in 2005 called the Art El, basically an elevated boardwalk. Artists, crafts people would actually work on the Art El [and] there were poetry readings, musicians and mimes and dancers. Some of the most really important contemporary artists went through ArtPark at that time, so it had this amazing combination of lesser known or emerging artist with artists who were really at the forefront of the 1970s.”
ArtPark’s heyday was twenty to thirty years ago and, as many of us remember, it was a place to take the family where children and adults alike could connect in physical and emotional ways with the exhibits.The legacy of the park is so immense that the website does not even mention the notable artists who have shown there. Where would a legacy page begin? Artpark fell victim years ago to what many cultural institutions have to confront at some point – a lack of federal or state money. Through the cooperation of the organization’s president, Sandra Firmin was given access to nearly ten thousand slides from the 1960s and on. She has digitized a number of the slides and will be hanging exhibition prints alongside replicas of various park elements. “ArtPark was very aware of the magnitude of the work they were conditioning. They had more than one staff photographer at their peak, paid to document all these projects, and they would hire helicopters to take arial shots. [There was an] outpouring of photography during that time period and that’s what the bulk of the exhibition is.” The opening reception will take place September 25th and will continue through December 18th.
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Laura Duquette is a former ballerina who now dances with words
and punctuation. She has a knack for asking questions faster than the
speed of sound, and her interviews are often off the cuff and personal.
She is Co-Owner of 12 Grain Studio, a Buffalo based creative firm that gives typical web design a kick in the ass.