Hundred Dollar Gallery 10th Anniversary Edition

Donna Akrey/Paul Allard/Morgan Kamocki Allaby/Michael Allgoewer/Stephen Altena/Tyler Armstrong/Gary Barwin/Patti Beckett/ Nancy Benoy/Natasja Bischoff/Gord Bond/Kiera Boult/Laura Bromwich/Nathan Eugene Carson/Andrea Carvalho/Christian Chapman/Nicole Collins/Justice Colwell/Danny Custodio/Marco d'Andrea/Robert Dayton/Tanya Denyer/Douglas Drake/Corinne Duchessne/Steacy Easton/Chuck Eelhart/Paul Elia/Christopher Reid Flock/Margaret Flood/Simon Frank/Laine Groeneweg/Cameron Groves/Sadko Hadzihasnovic/Christopher Hall/Stev'nn Hall/Anthony Haley/John Haney/Sarah Heinonen/Dave Hind/Corine Van Hoeve/Natalie Hunter/Phil Irish/Peter Jelen/EM Johnson/Steve Kahn/Abedar Kamgari/Andrea Kastner/John Kinsella/Caillin Kowalczyk/Dave Kuruc/Steven Laurie/Trisha Leigh Lavoie/Gord Leverton/Robyn Lightwalker/Henry Lu/Andrew MacDonald/Laura Marotta/Adam Matak/Ingrid Mayrhofer/Nancy Anne McPhee/Andrew McPhail/Steve Newberry/Eli Nolet/Andrew O’Connor/Hitoko Okada/Maureen Paxton/Cornelia Peckart/Carrie Perrault/Lisa Pijuan-Nomura/Klaus Pinter/Mark Prier/Jason Lee Rhyno/Ravinder Ruprai/Mariel Rutherford/Steph Seagram/Keith Shearsby/Maria Simmons/Kyle Stewart/TH&B/Ty Tekatch/David Trautrimas/Stephanie Vegh/Brandon Vickerd/Boyana Videkanic/Nikola Wojewoda/Cathy Yantsis

Look, talk is cheap. For example, I’m being paid nothing for writing this. But imagine I was paid one slim silver dime per word like in the old days when I wrote the obits and the racing news for the Abstract Expressionist Times. Let’s do the math. If a picture is worth 1000 words and each word is ten cents, then that picture is worth $100 which is good, because that’s what art sold for at the Hundred Dollar Gallery.
 
So if you’ve got one of those slick brown Sir Robert Borden c-notes heating up one of your cargo pants’ pockets, you can buy yourself some art here at the Hundred Dollar Gallery show. I mean, you could go to the dollar store and buy a hundred sparkly pencils with feathers on the end, or a 100 glue sticks that don’t quite work, but if you wanted to get your own totally original and unique piece of genuine Hamilton city art to gussy up your walls with ambitious class, then the Hundred Dollar Gallery show is for you. 
 
That’s the idea that artists Stephen Altena and Andrew McPhail came up with when creating the Hundred Dollar Gallery, late of Cannon St. near James St. N. Interesting and affordable art for a hundred bucks. Engaging shows and a community of gallery goers. Sure by dead of night you could slip in through the attic window of the Louvre or the MOMA and steal yourself a Picasso or a Garfunkel, but art isn’t just for criminals and Banker J. Moneybags. Art is for people. And here in Hamilton, art is a whole lot nicer than steel. At the Hundred Dollar Gallery, art was the new steal at $100 per art piece. That made it a kind of conceptual project in itself, problematizing the exchange value of art. Is art better if it costs more? What happens if regular folks can afford art? What is the relationship between art and money, between artist and purchaser, between a hundred bucks and your wall? What happens if you circumvent the idea of art as an expensive object for the elite and make it cost a lot less than a pair of snazzy sneaks? Or (and I just looked this up) six tickets to a movie. That’s nine hours of fun for your eyes, but for $100 at the Hundred Dollar Gallery show, you can buy some art and look for as long as you like. Also, even if you don’t buy anything, at the Hundred Dollar Gallery show you can look for free. It’s a nice thing to have this show at Hamilton Artist Inc to remember how great the Hundred Dollar Gallery was, how great its artists still are, and how great looking at things always is. 

By Gary Barwin