COLLECTING (POP) CULTURE
District Gallery solidifies itself as contemporary art haven By Carlo Wolff
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A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” comes to mind when one enters District Gallery, a welcoming, 1,500-square-foot enterprise at the Van Aken District in Shaker Heights. The phrase is the title of a short story by Ernest Hemingway, a writer who believed in trimming language to its essence. Like Hemingway’s prose, there’s no fat in the District Gallery, which opened in August 2019 at 20076 Walker Road. Rather, there is decidedly contemporary art, spanning paintings by the clear-eyed and celebrated American Alex Katz, the tactile resin blocks of Venezuelan native Alejandra Nuñez Advent, and the pop pointillism of Gavin Rain – a South African like Richard Uria, one of the gallery partners. While the space is about more than pop art, it is all about pop culture, targeting collectors from sneakerheads to connoisseurs. And it’s doing really well, according to Uria, who owns the gallery along with retired pharmacist and philanthropist Bob Roth and Roth’s niece, Karen Chaikin. Uria, who is also a philatelist, is in the lumber business. Chaikin’s background is journalism. All three are art collectors. How they came together is a trip – literally. A friend familiar with Roth’s collection introduced Uria to Roth some 10 years ago, when they first discussed opening a gallery, Roth says. He resisted. “I honestly don’t think galleries do very well in this city,” Roth says – though, he admits, he’s happily been
Resin blocks by Alejandra Nuñez Advent in the 2021 Cleveland Women’s Show at District Gallery. Photo courtesy of District Gallery.
26 | Canvas | Winter 2021
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