Douglas Dawson Gallery is a serene artdestination hidden behind a steel entry walloff of Morgan St. in the heart of the city’smeat packing district. When you walk upthe stone walkway under the cover of thewood trellis you are aware that you’re aboutto enter a gallery unlike any other inChicago. The gallery turns 30 at the end ofthis year, and for the occasion gallery direc-tors and partners Doug Dawson and WallyBowling spent some time over tea one rainysummer morning to talk about running acontemporary gallery that deals in ethno-graphic art and ancient artifacts. Uniquechallenges face them as they try to reach thenext generation of collectors while manag-ing new realities of sourcing and authentic-ity, but the two have relied on experienceand perspective to get them where they aretoday. -GV

Doug Dawson credits his entry into thegallery business to a potent combination ofnaïveté and terror. 30 years ago, when hemoved to Chicago from a political collective innortheast Iowa, Dawson had never been in anart gallery. He admits, “I very naïvely decidedto open one. In retrospect, it all seems likegreat strategizing, but in fact it was dumbluck.” His timing was also fortunate, since hehappened to rent a River North loft space in1983, when the area was just beginning tobubble. Dawson reflects he was delighted tofind himself suddenly in the middle of whatwas fast becoming the hot contemporary artneighborhood of Chicago.

Today, the gallery has been in the West Loopfor seven years. Dawson has seen manychanges since opening the gallery threedecades ago, but one constant has been thegallery’s focus on tribal art. When he firstopened he used a contemporary gallery modelto hold openings and complementary activitieslike lectures, as well as thematic exhibitions.Dawson credits this structure with helpinghim reach a larger, more energized audience ofcontemporary collectors than just those whocollected tribal art. The contemporary juxtapo-sition, he explains, means that someone whoencounters an ancient piece doesn’t have tohave expert knowledge about Burkina Faso; itdoesn’t matter if you’ve never heard of theAshanti tribe. A new context can dispel inse-curities, and, Dawson says, help fill in the gapslater.

To continue to offer new contexts and to keepthings fresh, the gallery occasionally show-cases contemporary art, working with artistswho see the ancient work in new ways – astrategy Dawson explains complements otherpieces in the gallery. He says, “As much as weneed to keep our clients interested we need tokeep ourselves interested. In dollars it’s a smallpart of the business, but in interest it generatesa lot. It’s harder and harder to do shows juston ethnographic art, so this helps fill our open-ings calendar as well as put older works in anew light.” Many of Dawson’s collectors arealso interested in minimalism, conceptual art,even antiques, so parallels are easily found.

Dawson and Bowling cross boundaries inother practical ways as well. Dawson explains,“We participate in contemporary art fairs – we

actually prefer them to tribal art fairs. If youinterview our collectors most will tell youthey’re contemporary art collectors.” Collect-ing tribal art has a long and dynamic historythat surprises many people. As Dawson says,“In fact, early French artists were collectors ofthis material too – they were affirmed and in-spired by it. Their own art was ratified by it.Interestingly there has been – a major para-digm change in that relationship. If you look atFrench artists in 1915 they were looking attribal art and seeing in it issues they were deal-ing with in their own art. Today it’s just flippedcompletely - it’s understood and evaluated bylooking first at 20th Century art. People comein and say ‘That looks just like a Giacometti’,for instance. That’s how it’s validated.”

All these overlapping interests would seem toindicate a broad audience for tribal art, butDawson admits that engaging a young audi-ence with this material can be challengingtoday. He says, “There’s less interest in non-western culture. Young people don’t travel likeour generation did. There’s a kind of ambiva-lence now. And tribal art certainly isn’t cool.Someone can spend $200,000 on a pre-Columbian textile, for example, take it home,put it on the wall, have a party, and 98% of thepeople there will have no idea what it is, letalone how much they’ve spent. It doesn’t makethe kind of impact that contemporary art canfor people who collect by the numbers. Youcan’t brand it.”

Another challenge that affects Dawson’s mar-ket, as well as the antique market he says, iswhat he sees going on with interior design.“All dealers are loathe to admit that’s a reallymajor engine in the art world but it is. Trendsin interior design now seem very conservative,very corporate. We hear young people aren’treally using interior designers anymore. Theybuy a loft and a TV screen bigger than the

house we grew up in, a Crate & Barrel sofa,and then LOTS of electronic toys. That’s kindof it.” Dawson and I discussed how actually,many pieces that have become best sellers atthe big box stores that appeal to transientyoung people, are in fact inspired by, if notcopies of, unique pieces from far flung coun-tries or long ago eras. If people feel they canobtain an apothecary coffee table that lookslike it came from a remote village in SouthEast Asia with the click of a button, and freeshipping, why would they seek out a well-trav-eled dealer who’s actually gone to the troubleto procure the real thing from a real village?Dealers, as well as individuals used to have totravel more to find such treasures. But Bowl-ing says that even if you travelled that way, es-pecially on your own, you wouldn’t necessarilysuch things anymore. He says, “So it’s kind ofa catch-22. When we used to travel more itwas more readily available. You’d get excitedabout pieces in-situ. People just got excitedabout the third world, but now it all looks verywestern. Villagers are wearing t-shirts shippedfrom the US. There are no ceramics. Instead,you see Michael Jackson’s face printed every-where. It’s a different perception of the worldnow generally.”

The number of younger collectors who fre-quent the gallery is small, but Bowling cites ahandful who are new to tribal art. He believes,“If you know you want to collect something, pre-Columbian ceramics areamazing. A lot of people think because of theage, prices must be out of reach; we do have toreflect the market, but if you look at what goesat the major auction houses today, these thingsare much less than contemporary counter-points, and they have some history.”

Dawson thinks any younger collector shouldfirst be curious. He advises, “Don’t expect tobuy right away, but do look and wonder on

Douglas Dawson Gallery: 30 Years of Tribal Art

Shibipo ceramics on display in the gallery’s main space.

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any kind of level – aesthetic, technical, histor-ical. When we were younger we used to go toso many galleries and just see and absorb.”He is frustrated by art students who come inbut don’t really look at pieces in the gallery.He’s lectured classes in the space, only tohave no one come back, and he wonderswhere they are getting their messages. “Forme the ideal is being curious and asking ques-tions, wondering about the people who madethese things – it broadens my idea of humanexperience. That’s what art is. I think it’s im-portant people know about the world.”

A museum experience is naturally quite dif-ferent role than the one a gallery provides, es-pecially in a field like tribal art. Locally,Dawson looks to the Art Institute and its ex-cellent collection. He says the head of the de-partment that deals with tribal art is probablythe best in the United States, but it still re-mains a department that has a very low pro-file in Chicago. He says, “There’s noenergized community around this materialhere. That affects business. There are someother dealers in Chicago who are participat-ing in the same market that we are, but noone is doing international shows and seekingthe same national level. I’m not demeaninganyone, but it would be nice if there weremore galleries dealing in this kind of art inorder to give people something to compare.”

These awareness challenges are all the morereason that visitors should be attracted toDawson’s gallery and unique field. In thegallery visitors encounter prime examples oftribal art as well as moving insights into worldhistory. Bowling, a trained architect himself,points out that the space was designed to looklike the houses their clients might have. Smallrooms and spaces allow you to discoverthings. He says, “There’s an intimacy that youdon’t get in a museum. You can look at apiece here and respond in your own setting.”Dawson says visitors are invited to come in,touch things, ask an expert questions. It’s arare point of access.

Dawson and Bowling have gone to great dis-tances to give clients that kind of up-close ac-cess, traveling the globe to art fairs andremote destinations to bring the best of theworld’s tribal art to collectors. Their specialtyalso involves regularly going through hoops.One of the primary obstacles demonstrateshow recent issues of our own security haveresulted in newer challenges of dealing intribal art. Dawson says, “the Patriot Act re-ally has become sort of a nightmare in the artbusiness, where everything is suspect. Deal-ing with the Federal Government, the De-partment of Fish and Wildlife and U.S.Customs – to get a clarification of what youcan and cannot do, it’s almost impossible.”

Dawson and Bowling say they travel a lot lessthan they used to, partly because of the reces-sion, and partly because they haven’t neededto replace inventory as often. Bowling saysthe two do more internal travel and less for-eign, and the foreign travel is more for pleas-ure. Still, they manage to travel about aquarter of the year, but art fairs largely dic-tate travel. Their recent ventures would stillfill many of us with wanderlust: South Amer-ica, Asia, and throughout Africa. Trips usuallyinvolve seeing contacts, visiting museums,and staying up to date with other collections.

Travel is often not when acquisitions are actu-ally made, since as Dawson points out, acqui-sitions are almost never from the country oforigin. He explains, “The things we’d wantwould be illegal to import or export in mostcases. We buy things that have impeccableprovenance and authenticity, and to do thatwe must spend a lot of time going through agreat deal of steps. We have a good museumbusiness, and it’s more and more difficult tosell to museums now because of concernsabout provenance and authenticity. For in-stance, we’re more likely to look to buy thingsfrom this country or Europe than we are fromMexico or Peru or Indonesia.”

Authenticity is a serious matter, particularlysince Dawson has a strong museum business.

“Not long ago,” Dawson says, “we had a largeprehistoric African terra cotta figure and thehead had been broken off. In that world ofAfrican archeological ceramics there’s a lot offorgery - mixing of pieces and reconstructingthings. The client wanted to be sure we hadthe right head for the body. We sent it to Mc-Crone Associates in suburban Chicago for ahost of tests, like thermoluminescence, whichdetermines when a ceramic was submitted toa certain temperature. Both the head and thebody came out equally correct in that test.Then, they ground up samples from bothparts and those came out perfectly. They x-rayed. Then, they drilled into a point wherethe ceramic hadn’t gotten hot enough to car-bonize organic material, and they found ani-mal hair that had been used as a bondingagent. These pieces are 2,500 years old. Theypulled a hair out of the head, and a hair out ofthe body and did DNA tests. The hairs camefrom the same female goat. Ultimately theysaid it was “highly likely” - the most definitivestatement they’ll make - that the two partswere made at the same time, from the samelump of clay, by the same person. We will gothat far to determine authenticity.”

Regarding their base in Chicago, Dawsonsays it’s a sort of double-edged sword: “We dohave some second city syndrome here, wherepeople will prefer to buy things in New Yorkor Paris, particularly in the art world, sincethat has a sort of caché. That said we havebeen here for 30 years. Chicago is a great citythat draws a lot of people in for numerousevents.” He admits to a familiar dealerquandary, “We couldn’t survive in Chicagojust on Chicago. It’s because we’ve developeda national reputation that we can do what wedo here. But I think that’s true of everyone.That’s what keeps everyone open in this city.Dawson says that above all they’ve enjoyed agreat run in Chicago. Most of the obstaclesthey’ve faced have in fact been in place fromthe beginning, and here they still are afterthree decades. For our space, this is a pro-tected manufacturing district, so we are ableto have this sculpture gallery and to make thegallery a destination. Obviously we could nothave all of this in too many other cities.”

Ricketts textiles showcased at the entrance of the gallery

A contemporary piece by gallery artist Frank Connet

Douglas Dawson Gallerywww.douglasdawson.com 400 N Morgan (60607) • 312-226-7975

The gallery will be participating in EXPO Chicagoat Navy Pier September 20-23, 2012.

Printed in September-December 2012 issue of Chicago Gallery News. Not to be reproduced without permission from CGN.

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