An Interview with a Dealer: Randy Alexander
Each week, CGN interviews a local art dealer to discuss the ins and outs of running a gallery in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Randy Alexander of Randy Alexander Gallery.
Gallery: Randy Alexander Gallery
Name: Randy Alexander
Previous occupations: Fundraiser, Actor, Truck Driver, Curator
Hometown: Chicago
Chicago Gallery News: How did you become an art dealer?
Randy Alexander: I lost my mind one day and the first thing that came to me was running a gallery.
CGN: Please describe your gallery’s program in one sentence.
RA: Emerging and established conceptually-based art.
CGN: What's the first thing you do each morning when you get to the gallery?
RA: Use the restroom.
CGN: Thumbs up or down on art fairs?
RA: Down.
CGN: Artists you admire but don't represent?
RA: Berenice Abbott, Gertrude Abercrombie, Vito Acconci, Ansel Adams, Nicolas Africano, Josef Albers...I won't even get beyond the A’s before we run out of space for this answer.
CGN: Best sale you ever had?
RA: Sturtevant's Joseph Beuys’ Fat Corner.
CGN: What advice would you share with new or young collectors?
RA: Buy everything I tell you to buy.
CGN: What’s coming up next at your gallery?
RA: Opening on September 16, two shows with Inigo Manglano-Ovalle and Jeff Prokash.
CGN: What major successes have you had this year? What about challenges?
RA: Major success this year was staying in business. Major challenge this year was staying in business.
CGN: How do you view working as an art dealer in Chicago? How does it compare to New York in the 1990s?
RA: Chicago has a dynamic emerging scene and my job is to find, exhibit and translate the most powerful work I encounter from that scene. The 1990s collectors in New York were more passionate about investing in emerging artists.
CGN: What is your favorite interest outside of the art world?
RA: Movies.
CGN: What is your favorite work of public art in Chicago?
RA: Kwagulth Totem Pole (east of Lake Shore Drive at Addison).
CGN: What are the five best shows you’ve seen so far in 2017?
- Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at the Met Breuer
- Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends at MoMA
- Joan Jonas: what is found in the windowless house is true at Gavin Brown’s enterprise
- Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry at the Jewish Museum
- Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Randy Alexander is the owner of Randy Alexander Gallery located in the South Loop in Chicago. For more information about his gallery visit: Randy Alexander Gallery.