The Bentley Gallery, a downtown Scottsdale contemporary art gallery, will be relocating its collection to its downtown Phoenix location, the Bentley Projects, during the month of October.
A lack of display space prompted the two locations to be consolidated into one, which is slated to open on Nov. 1.
The Projects, a 28,000-square-foot space located on Grant and Third streets, is about one mile south of Roosevelt Row.
Owner Bentley Calverley’s acclaimed blue-chip artists have produced work on a physical scale too grand for the available space in Scottsdale. The Projects currently houses the largest of Calverley’s collections, exhibiting display pieces under its high arched ceiling in the venue’s open floor plan. It will remain open by appointment only while the Scottsdale artwork is being moved in.
The Scottsdale gallery, a 4,800-square-foot art gallery with shiny concrete floors and a jewelry-box feel, has been part of the Scottsdale art scene for over 20 years.
ASU professor and artist Mark Pomilio said the Scottsdale gallery feels like the size of a single room in an affluent home. He called the Projects a “totally cool space … edgy, big, and lofty.” He will have an exhibition of his art at the Bentley Projects in early January.
It is “bittersweet leaving,” said Lisa Greve, a public relations representative for the Bentley Gallery.
Some of the blue-chip artists Caverly has featured include Jim Dine, Jun Kaneko, Helen Frankenthaler and Adolph Gottlieb.
Kaneko’s work was displayed in Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport’s terminal 3 – five large, colorful oblong sculptures – and at the Phoenix Art Museum in the form of a 30-foot-long tile work near the pedestrian entrance of the museum. Calverley has represented Kaneko for the past 20 years.
Without a large space to display oversize works, Calverley said she was forced to split some of her shows between two locations: smaller artwork at the Gallery and larger artwork at the Projects.
Consolidating allows the Projects to display anything artists send, Calverley said. Artists do not necessarily think of the feasibility of displaying their work, she said, with their primary concern being for the art.
“Artists think: this would be the most amazing thing I could create,” Calverley said. “They have a vision and they execute it.”
The consolidation eliminates the 30-minute trip to Phoenix from Scottsdale and allows clients to make side-by-side comparisons of artwork.
Calverley said the time to consolidate her venues has come. The economy is no longer what it was eight years ago, and neither is Phoenix, she said.
Phoenix, Calverley said, has made a clear effort to enhance the downtown area.
“It’s very exciting, all the small restaurants going in,” Calverley said. “They’re small and wonderful. I want to be part of the vibrancy.”
Wayne Rainey, owner of MonOrchid, a downtown Phoenix art collaboration, said Calverley brings the “substantiated record Phoenix needs. [Phoenix’s] missing ingredient, so to speak, is a top-end gallery.”
Rainey has shown some of his work with the Bentley Gallery in the past, and the Bentley Project’s presence will lend credence to emerging artists, he said.
“You won’t be taken seriously until you’ve been seriously critiqued,” he said.
Calverley’s prestige will draw more art critics to the Phoenix area, Pomilio said. Increased critical presence will help emerging artists gain recognition in other venues, he said.
“I’d like to see more support for local artists,” he said.
The Bentley Projects will be open Thursday, Friday and Saturday starting Nov. 1 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays by appointment.
Contact the reporter at cameron.robello@asu.edu
