Hera Gallery is a small, non-profit artist cooperative

Artist cooperative

An artist cooperative is an autonomous visual arts organization, enterprise, or association jointly-owned and democratically-controlled by its members. Artist cooperatives are legal entities organized as non-capital stock corporations, non-profit organizations, or unincorporated associations...

 in Wakefield, Rhode Island

Wakefield, Rhode Island

Wakefield is a village in the town of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and the commercial center of the town. Together with the village of Peace Dale, it is treated by the U.S. Census as a component of the census designated place identified as Wakefield-Peacedale, Rhode Island. South Kingston was...

 USA. Created within the context of the Feminist Art Movement

Feminist art movement

The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to make art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and reception of contemporary art. It also sought to bring more visibility to women within...

, Hera Gallery was a pioneer in the genesis of artist-run space

Artist-run space

An artist-run space is a gallery space run by artists, thus circumventing the structures of public and private galleries.Artist-run spaces have become realised as an important factor in urban regeneration...

s. Its founding objective in 1974 was to provide a venue for women artists

Women artists

Women artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...

, under-represented at the time in commercial galleries. As the cultural climate changed in the 1980s, the gallery broadened its scope to include visual artists of both genders. Concurrently, Hera curated more topical exhibitions with a broadened spectrum of social awareness and activism. To this day, the gallery provides contemporary artists with the opportunity to address cultural, social, and political issues and to maintain creative control.

History

Hera Gallery was created in 1974, the year that the alternative gallery movement burst beyond major cities and into locations as remote as a village in rural southern Rhode Island. It was conceived from a consciousness-raising group consisting mostly of artists, and often associated with the nearby University of Rhode Island

University of Rhode Island

The University of Rhode Island is the principal public research university in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Its main campus is located in Kingston. Additional campuses include the Feinstein Campus in Providence, the Narragansett Bay Campus in Narragansett, and the W. Alton Jones Campus in West...

, that started meeting in 1969. One of the common topics to discuss were the difficulties of balancing the domestic responsibilities of being wife and mother with a professional artistic career. The women discussed the difficulty in having their work represented in Manhattan galleries, where apparent sexism from gallery owners caused their work to be disregarded. Hera Gallery was thus created in order to foster a professional community of women artists, in the vein of other recently established women-run artist cooperatives, such as New York City's A.I.R. Gallery

A.I.R. Gallery

A.I.R. was the first all female cooperative gallery in the United States. It was founded in 1972 with the objective of providing a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists during a time in which the works shown at commercial galleries in New York City were almost exclusively by...

. At the time, a Providence Journal writer commented that "...a women's art center named after a bitchy Greek goddess and housed in a barn that used to be a laundry is New England's only art gallery completely owned and controlled by women..."

Organizational structure

Initially the organization of Hera Gallery consisted of non-hierarchical egalitarian committees, influenced by feminist ideals. As the gallery grew, its Board of Directors, once only represented by artist-members, was appended with a community Advisory Board from 1986–2000, according to the gallery's unpublished “Addendum to the History of Hera”. Furthermore, when the Advisory Board was discontinued in 2000, the Board of Directors began including external community members (Addendum). Since 1992 (Addendum) there has also been a Gallery Director part-time paid position.

Hera Gallery offers its members an annual solo exhibition, inclusion in group exhibitions, curatorial opportunities, and positions on the Board of Directors. It serves the surrounding community by “encouraging ethnic and cultural diversity in both audience and program development. ”

Developments

Since its inception, Hera Gallery has resided in a building that was a garage in the 1920s, then a laundromat, and later a flea market, before finally being outfitted by the founding artists and their loved ones. Its landlord throughout this time was a sympathetic URI professor who kept the rent low for them. After his recent demise, the family put the land on the market but waited for a buyer whose plan included preserving the gallery. In September 2007 it was announced that a buyer plans on demolishing the existing building to create a mixed-use development including residential condominiums and inclusion of the gallery.

Notable Artists Exhibited

Dale Chihuly

Dale Chihuly

Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur.-Biography:Chihuly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington. He enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound in 1959...

Judy Gelles

Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban American performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist who is known for her "earth-body" art work....

Italo Scanga

Italo Scanga

Italo Scanga Italian-born American artist.-Biography:Born in Lago, Calabria to Giuseppe and Serafina Ziccarelli, youngest of four children: Carolina, Mafalda and Nicolino.-About his work:...

Carolee Schneeman

Susan Weil

Susan Weil

Susan Weil is an American artist best known for her experimental three-dimensional paintings, which combine figurative illustration with explorations of movement and space. In the late 1940s Weil was involved in a relationship with Robert Rauschenberg...

External links

• Hera Gallery Official Site
• Hera Gallery Official Blog More frequent updates on Hera Gallery news
• “Mixed use explored for Hera’s, Phil’s” 2006 South County Independent article