Gallery Lombardi: A little farther from the train tracks, but the art still rocks
Gallery Lombardi has left its longtime home on Third Street for new digs on West Seventh, but you can expect the same great salon-style group shows for which it's known
By Barry Pineo, Fri., March 9, 2007
One need only look up at the cranes that dot the Downtown skyline or down at the traffic that clogs practically every road at every conceivable hour to know that Austin is growing by leaps and bounds. This growth affects not only every resident of the area in ways big and small but also the businesses and organizations that serve those residents, including the arts organizations.
Such is the case with Gallery Lombardi, the eclectic visual-arts gallery whose home since 1996 has been at 910 W. Third. But very soon, the new 36-story, 200-unit Spring condominiums will dominate the area where the little 850-square-foot gallery used to be. "I've known about this for a long time, since two years ago," says Rachel Koper, Gallery Lombardi's longtime curator (and Chronicle Visual Arts writer). "Diana [Zuniga, the gallery's landlady and one of the major forces behind Spring] found me the new space. It's slightly smaller, about 800 square feet. But I'm very happy with it. I was hoping to stay Downtown. I love the East Austin arts scene, but I used to live on Oakland [Avenue] and in Clarksville, and I love the West End. So I'm really happy to stay in that West-End Downtown neighborhood."
The new space is a cream-colored building at 602 W. Seventh, just a bit northeast of Katz's Deli, but while the venue is new, Koper has no plans to switch from the salon-style group shows for which Gallery Lombardi is known. In fact, the first show in the new space is both prototypically Gallery Lombardi and prototypically Austin: "Draw," featuring, perhaps not surprisingly, drawings by 150 different artists, including ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Butthole Surfers' Gibby Haynes, and … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's Conrad Keely. "My first choice for holding an exhibit in March was the Texas Biennial, which is a statewide juried art show," says Koper. "But I couldn't do it because, when we had to commit to be a venue, I hadn't signed my lease, and I didn't know if I would be ready to open. Then we got the new space and got in there, and I realized that we could get open for March and that we should because it's such a good month. So I chose to open with 'Draw.'
"It's a good fit for the gallery. It features vanguard creative skateboarders, musicians, writers, animators, cartoonists. Showing artists of this caliber is a dream come true for me. Barry McGee is one of my heroes, as is Ron English." It's also a good fit for South by Southwest, and Koper is planning some special crossover events. "Our grand opening is on March 9. Then we're having a mixer on the 14th with MyToons, an animation company that's doing its global launch. We're hosting Rusty Mills, who was the animator for Pinky and the Brain, and we're going to have some of his animations on a plasma screen. And on the 16th, we're doing a South by Southwest evening event. We're going to have DJs, live graffiti art, and refreshments." All of these events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.gallerylombardi.com.
