Return of the World Tattoo
Artist/entrepreneur/radio personality Tony Fitzpatrick is reopening the World Tattoo Gallery with a show and a way of doing business that are likely to create a stir in the local art world. Fitzpatrick plans to resurrect the gallery, which has been shuttered since February 6, on October 21 with a showing of work by three artists: himself, Wesley Kimler, and Ed Paschke, considered by some to be the city’s preeminent living visual artist. Unlike most galleries, which traditionally keep as much as 50 percent of the sale price of every work, World Tattoo won’t keep any money from sales by its exhibiting artists. In Paschke’s case a commission of approximately 10 percent will go to the Phyllis Kind Gallery, which has represented the artist in Chicago since 1977. And the Struve Gallery, which has represented Kimler locally for almost ten years, is expected to get about the same amount from his sales. Meanwhile World Tattoo, according to Fitzpatrick, will support itself primarily with money from Fitzpatrick’s printmaking shop, which is located in the same building as the gallery, at 1255 S. Wabash. But exhibiting artists will be free to make voluntary contributions, says Fitzpatrick. And eventually, perhaps in a matter of weeks, he plans to turn the space over to a collective of 100 or so artists who would pay around $25 a month to lease and operate the gallery themselves. “Artists are going to have to learn how to take control of their careers,” says Fitzpatrick. The gallery’s landlord is donating the space through the end of 1994.
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But Bengtson argues that artists benefit from gallery representation whether they realize it or not. “One of the reasons artists have galleries is so that they don’t have to deal with the unpleasantries of trying to sell art.” He looks at the World Tattoo show as an experiment and a way for artists to “learn about the process of selling art.” But he’s skeptical about the gallery’s off-the-beaten-track location. “I think they’ll have a large opening crowd, but in terms of traffic, what they will have there will not be what we have on a day-to-day basis.”
