Quint Gallery and “Heavy Light”

for Riviera Magazine, December, 2006

Of all the possible roles to play at the top of the art world, the least appreciated belongs to the contemporary art gallery. It’s the portal through which new art is seen for the first time by more than a few of the artists friends. It’s also the mechanism by which most artists earn their living.

For gallery owner and artist alike, it can be a very risky business; with the rare people who run these businesses being as wedded to the art they show as any of the artists they exhibit. In recognition of this, it has become fashionable to speak of such people as “gallerists,” in the same spirit that painters and sculptors are spoken of as artists.

In San Diego, no one has better exemplified this role than Mark Quint, whose Quint Gallery is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Since its beginning, the gallery has stood as one of San Diego’s most prestigious venues for serious contemporary art; presenting over 200 exhibitions by more than a thousand artists, most of them based in Southern California but also from nations and cultures around the world. The great range and variety of these offerings; in a series of locations stretching from La Jolla to downtown to Mira Mesa and again to La Jolla; is one of the essential elements of the Quint Gallery’s character.

Quint’s current gallery-filling exhibition of video art, which remains on view through the end of the year, demonstrates his ever shifting, predictably unpredictable tastes and enthusiasms. Titled “Heavy Light” and featuring an assemblage of artists from New York, Ireland, California and Chicago, the presentation offers a look at the leading edge of today’s contemporary video art. Among the works are hand drawn digital images, video paintings, a video installation in which viewers become part of the art, and a ‘real time’ visualization of a 1,000 year long day.

What’s especially surprising with this show, beyond the fact that 100% of the gallery’s space is devoted to a form of art that hardly anyone thinks of buying, is that Quint himself will share his views about the work in a public-invited discussion starting at 7 P.M. on Wednesday, December 13.

This kind of public presence is very rare for Quint, who generally presents himself as ‘just one of the crowd’ at his gallery’s openings. Perhaps this dis-interest in the spotlight reflects the ethos of the Southern California surfing culture in which he grew up. The sea and the waves were as much a part of his early life as the drawings and paintings he would create from his childhood years through his graduation from La Jolla High in 1972 and his Bachelor’s degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1976. Then, for the next few years, he taught art classes at a girls’ school in Hawaii – a great destination for a surfer, but not the ideal place to launch a career as a studio artist, as he admits.

As Quint describes that time, “It became increasingly clear to me that I didn’t have what it takes to be the kind of artist I wanted to be. At the same time, I got increasingly excited by the idea of opening a gallery where I could show the work of artists who really did have what it takes. So I came back to La Jolla in 1981 and just jumped into the business of being an art gallery. To be honest, I had little more than no idea of what I was doing. I just did it.”

Quint’s gallery caught a rising tide of art in San Diego. The dynamism of the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and the aura of the nationally admired faculty at UCSD’s Visual Arts department added fuel to the fires of the city’s art scene, as did the region’s growing population and sense of civic pride.

These were the energies that fueled the Quint Gallery’s rise to prominence during its early years, and that momentum has never stopped.

As characterized by Hugh Davies, director of the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (the former LJMCA), “It is fair to say that no one has done more than Mark Quint to develop the art scene in San Diego over the past twenty-five years. It has been an inspiration to follow him and the exhibition program he has consistently presented in gallery spaces all over the city for so many years. The through-line has been his impeccable eye, uncompromising intelligence and a fierce loyalty to his artists and his friends. Had it been about money, he would have thrown in his hand years ago, but his persistence for the sake of art has vastly improved the cultural climate of our city. We at the museum salute him.”

An artist’s view of the Quint Gallery is expressed by Gary Lang, a highly regarded Los Angeles based painter and video artist whose “Dividing Time ” is part of Quint’s video exhibition: “When I met Mark in 1981, an L.A. colleague asked me how important a gallerist from La Jolla could be. Twenty five years later I can tell you that Mark is the most important member of my professional team. He has always been a beacon of creativity and continuity. He has never let me down and is currently a renewable source of hope, surprise, and inspiration for work yet to come. He is a treasure.”

Quint’s anticipation for the next 25 years? “I’m already seeing a new expansion in the number of people of a younger generation who are interested in collecting contemporary art, and a steadily increasing interest in art as a public and community asset. There’s a special satisfaction that comes with an engagement with art. That is what has propelled my life all along, and the gallery is a way to share it. I see no reason to ever stop.”

The Quint Gallery is located in La Jolla at 7739 Fay Avenue and is accessed via the alley entrance on Drury Lane, between Fay and Girard Avenues. Call 858-454-3409 for gallery hours and other information.