(Credit: Davis Dominguez)
Mike Dominguez is a self-described elitist art snob. Tattoos, illustration and graphic design don’t qualify as art, he says, they’re MacArt—meaning faux art meant to satisfy the masses, not the same as contemporary art, the highest form of human expression.
He brings this distinction to his gallery, Davis Dominguez, which shows only contemporary fine paintings, drawings and sculpture, with one exception: The Small Works Invitational exhibit.
With clean white walls, smooth concrete floors and four soothing skylights shining through the towering bow truss ceiling, the old warehouse-turned-gallery whispers of elegance and sophistication.
“Everybody in my gallery, who's part of my gallery, went to art school,” Dominguez says on a recent afternoon inside the roughly 5,400-square-foot space. “I don’t really believe in that myth of saying, ‘oh I'm self taught.’ I know it exists, but it’s a great American myth. Everybody’s an artist, that’s another myth.”
This hard stance on what is and isn’t contemporary art and suitable for gallery showing gets shoved out the back door once a year, as the Small Works Invitational, his gallery’s part of the Summer Art Cruise, takes over.
For the Small Works Invitational, Dominguez loosens his tie and breaks the rules.
He sends invitations to established and unknown artists, friends and art students—and allows any medium, provided it fits the small size specifications. With more than 80 artists showing, and no unifying theme other than “small”—a painting can be no more than 12-by-12 inches, sculpture no larger than 18 inches high—the exhibit is definitely different from what usually shows at the gallery.
“All these silly rules I have during the regular season—poof,” he says. “And we’re just going to let everybody bring their best shot at whatever’s small.”
Because there are so many works of art, and because they are all small and don’t take much wall space, the most fun part of viewing the small works exhibit, Dominguez says, is viewing one piece, taking two small steps, and viewing another piece.
This viewing method at Davis Dominguez is a lot like the Summer Art Cruise. The Central Tucson Gallery Association hosts the seasonal event and coordinates openings at 13 galleries, most of which are within walking distance of each other. Art appreciators can view one gallery, take a few steps, and view another gallery.
The Summer Art Cruise is important for the art scene and the participating galleries, Dominguez says, because, surprisingly, it draws the largest crowd of the four annual events put on by the Central Tucson Gallery Association. Dominguez is a practical man who attributes the large turnout to fact that there is almost nothing to do in Tucson’s summer months.
This year has been one of the worst he has ever seen for sales at Davis Dominguez and for attendance at galleries and museums around the country, which is odd, because, he says, “One of the neat secrets about art is that you don’t have to spend any money to enjoy art.”
“Not only that,” he says, “you go to a movie, and you’re not supposed to talk with your family. But you go to an art gallery with a little kid you can go, ‘Wow, that’s a picture of a man. What’s that brown stuff? It looks like a target. What does that mean?'...It’s a really neat thing to do and it’s absolutely free.”
