Two years ago, while Justine Jentes was volunteering at a prochoice benefit auction, an art collector friend took her by the arm and encouraged her to purchase something. That evening Jentes came home with three paintings. With a mixture of pride and responsibility she thought, “Oh my god, I own art!” She stayed up all night deciding where to hang it.
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Jentes, 28, knows there are a lot of people in their 20s and 30s who didn’t grow up with much exposure to art. And while galleries may welcome crowds with wine and cheese during fall openings, they unnerve many people during the rest of the year. “You feel like you’re going to be checked out and measured by the people who work there,” Jentes says. “So you’d better know a lot going in or else they won’t take you seriously. I think that’s a big problem. . . . I thought there’s got to be a way of making all of this a little more fun and accessible to people.”
“They don’t want to say what they think and they don’t want to see things,” she says. “They are so concerned with, what does it all mean and am I saying the right thing? Did I use the right words? Did I know the right term to apply to that artwork?”
Jentes is planning monthly exhibits by a range of artists that she hopes will help participants develop their tastes (and perhaps whet their appetites). She takes a 25 percent commission–half of what galleries usually receive–because she says she wants to keep prices down. All of the works go for between $50 and $1,000.
