The gloom is palpable on a recent overcast and frigid midday sojourn to KEEP Contemporary’s new digs on St. Francis Drive. After 10 years and three locations adjacent to the Plaza, gallery owner Jared Antonio-Justo Trujillo made the difficult decision to move out of his Lincoln Avenue location into what was surely someone’s house at some point ages ago. Inside, Trujillo and his buddy, the artist Ian Kuali’i (Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian and Mescalero Apache) are busy painting and cleaning and prepping for the gallery’s grand relaunch on Friday, Dec. 19. Trujillo calls Kuali’i his “gallery director,” while Kuali’i insists he’s just there to lend a hand however he can. The emptiness of the new space feels like it’s saying something, though it could indicate any number of branching paths, a blank slate.
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Trujillo is excited to say he’ll have parking now at his new location (718 S St. Francis Drive)—a first in his career as a gallerist—plus a renewed focus on showing local artists while making economical use of fewer square feet. Trujillo says he’s hopeful about some of the changes, but after always managing to make a go of it in a heavily foot-trafficked area in Santa Fe’s once-coveted downtown area, there’s a part of him that’s worried this is a grim portend.
“I left Lincoln for a few reasons, one of which was that my overhead was really high and we had a slow sales summer,” he tells SFR. “I think my QuickBooks said I was down 41% over the last summer. I say this having been downtown for so many years—something happened, and I don’t know if it was the pandemic or what, but it’s never gotten better for small businesses.”
In Trujillo’s estimation, much of the Santa Fe art market has revolved around serious (read, wealthy) collectors and tourists. KEEP, however, was mostly driven by local clientele, who made up roughly 80% of his regular customers. Trujillo says KEEP never carried any work with a price tag of more than $20,000, and though that translated to local buyers picking up smaller pieces, the days of out-of-towners wandering by with heavy wallets might have passed.
“I believe the economy is so hard right now that it’s tough for people to justify spending money on art,” he says. “When the cost of living is so high in Santa Fe, what are the locals supposed to do? I always wanted to keep KEEP accessible because I have a background in graffiti and street art, and I wanted to give a voice to people in a conservative market like Santa Fe, but now that Pop Gallery is gone, I’m literally the only lowbrow, outsider art kind of gallery in town.”
Kuali’i sees the current challenges for galleries as both a sign of the times, including post-pandemic hardships, plus a federal administration that is, shall we say, not particularly interested in art that has something to say.
“It’s so complex and like a case study of this…parfait of eras and timelines and different schools of thought,” he explains. “For the local artists locked into this small community—they’re showing with artists from all over the world, which is great, but it’s still so complicated, of course.”
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Kuali’i argues, however, that KEEP’s new location in a less tourist-driven part of town could contribute to a recentering of local interests. Trujillo has always shown Santa Fe folks like Nico Salazar, Sienna Luna, Dylan Pommer, Dennis Larkins and many more, and, he says, he’s excited to double down on finding and showing others. Emerging artists have always been a part of his mission. Still, the move does beg the question: Should galleries and artists long tethered to downtown be worried?
According to Michael Carroll of Turner Carroll Gallery and, formerly, CONTAINER, there will always be hurdles in this particular business, but a need for agility has always been baked into the formula, even if federal policy issues are trickling down into the business of local art. Carroll and his wife Tonya Turner-Carroll, for example, sold CONTAINER earlier this year after years spent creating a pipeline for artists to show and, ultimately, wind up in museums and prestigious collections.
“It depends on what side of the market you’re on, because if you read the, like, Art Basel wrap-up, the big-name galleries continue to do well, because the solidity of the name brand market has always kind of been there,” Carroll tells SFR. “But it’s a terrible indicator for the rest of us who are doing things with DEI artists, emerging artists and working on representation. There are economic headwinds in terms of the uncertainty Washington has created and a bigger fundamental shift happening in the market itself. Those two things are dancing with each other.”
Trujillo says the fundamental shift might lie with consumers looking more toward experiences rather than one-off purchases. Events, concerts, travel—these things create memories, Trujillo says, and people just aren’t buying art like they once did. Both he and Carroll, however, maintain that it’s important for art world movers and shakers to bring folks up with them if possible.
“I want to see things I haven’t seen before, for one thing,” Trujillo notes, “and I want it to be from the soul. Who am I to say what’s bad or good? I just want to create a space for the soulful, not to create space for decorative art that matches your fucking couch.”
Thus, Carroll says, “the move is to pivot.”
“Where are you in the gallery world, and how loud do you want to be?” he says. “Are your goals repping artists, getting into museums? Selling brand-name pieces? Are you on the blue chip side or the emerging side? At the end of the day, too, it’s still business.”
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Trujillo says he aims for the middle ground between upscale gallery and a space for emerging weirdos, which is precisely what he appears to be doing with his grand re-opening on Dec. 19. The show is slated to feature works by a gaggle of creators, including Alex Chavez, Mono Cieza, Autumn Hunnicutt, Tanya Pomales, Dennis Larking, Tyler Mitchell, Bro the Artist and so many more. Some of these names, folks likely know; others might be new to appreciators and collectors. With fewer walls than before, the show must be more concise than previous KEEP offerings, though Trujillo says he’ll continue to represent a high number of artists through online sales, one-off shows and monthly reconfigurations.
After 10 years running a gallery, he simply can’t see any other way of doing business without abandoning the core tenets he set down for himself when he was first coming up through the business. The bottom line, he says, is that he simply wants to continue the work, wherever that may need to happen and however that might look.
“Was moving my choice? No, not really. But I think you end up where you need to end up in life,” he says. “I love the idea of being in this area. To survive, I need to be versatile.”
KEEP Contemporary Re-Grand Opening: 5-8 pm Friday, Dec. 19. Free. KEEP Contemporary, 718 S St. Francis Drive, keepcontemporary.com
