Anderson Goin has made some ugly art. It’s okay, though. He knows this to be true himself. For Goin, “ugly” isn’t some big, off-putting word. If it were, the contemporary abstract painter wouldn’t have named his gallery, opening this Saturday, the Ugly Art Company.
And, hey, “ugly” is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? That’s what Goin discovered for himself at one of his first shows. “My friend and her mother — I was standing behind them and they did not know that — the mom looked to my friend and she goes, ‘His work is just so ugly,’” he says of what he now describes as a funny moment. “I heard that obviously, and thankfully that piece ended up selling. Naturally, it hurt my feelings a little bit, but … that’s kind of how I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the word ‘ugly’ and how people use it. I just decided to embrace it and make it something beautiful.”
If anything, Goin reflects now, sometimes artists need to first create something “ugly” to unearth artistic beauty. It’s part of the artistic process. “Looking back on a lot of my younger, my older stuff, there’s a special place that I keep for some of my older work, but,” he says, “a lot of times like, oh gosh, that was not great. And those critiques are the ones that hopefully have helped me along the way. But, yeah, that probably was a little ugly, but hey, we love that.”
“If you’re not getting good feedback,” Goin adds, “you’re gonna keep making the same mistakes.”
That innate need for feedback, it turns out, drove Goin to start Ugly in 2021, not as a gallery space but as a collective. He’d recently graduated from the Memphis College of Art, and without the structure of critiques built into his classes, he was lost. “My ultimate goal was to create a group of like-minded artists so that we could share our work, have critiques together, and then also I would share their work through our social media channels,” Goin says. “At the time, I was trying to build a website for us, so people could just have another way to promote their work and to sell their work. And it kind of just grew from there.”
The collective, which now consists of some 14 artists of many disciplines, has worked without a physical hub for the past few years, exhibiting in shows at places like the Medicine Factory, having virtual critiques with the very issues you’d expect from any virtual meeting. But this new gallery space, designed by cnct. design, will allow for consistent shows and critiques, much more conducive to the group’s needs. “We can do everything that we had wanted to.”
Ugly has taken over the old Spectrum night club downstairs space in the Edge District, and Goin aims to make it “refined and sophisticated.” But, he adds, “one of our whole tenets is that we want people to have fun, and we want our space to be welcoming to everybody, whether you have an MFA and you’ve studied art your whole life or if you’ve really never looked at a piece of art critically ever. We want people to have fun.”
Goin and his fellow Ugly artists want to break down any anxieties people may have about coming into a gallery space. Part of that will be through education — “talking to them about our art and the artists in our group,” Goin says. “The people in Ugly are super approachable, super friendly. And that was a big deal for us: We wanted to create a group of people that are hungry to not only get better themselves, but to help people along the way.
“That’s kind of our common ground — that we care deeply about the arts. We care deeply about Memphis and so that’s kind of what has threaded us together — that love of art and of community.”
The collective also plans to “open the doors up to as many possibilities as we can get to as many different kids of people as we can get in the doors.” Movie nights, ballet performances, open critiques, and workshops are just some of the ideas that have been floated.
“We want to cultivate a space that encourages all art forms, whether it be dance or music or cooking,” Goin adds. “We hope to incorporate all of that into meaningful experiences that people can walk away from feeling really good about whenever they leave our space. We want to give love and have people feeling full when they leave our space.
“We’re really hopeful that this is going to be super beneficial not only for the patrons and the Edge District and everyone that comes to see the space and enjoy it, but for us to grow together and to help each other, get to the next stages of our careers.”
For Goin, he never could’ve imagined opening a space like this before he founded Ugly. “I think most artists will probably tell you, it’s harder to sell your own work sometimes, but I really enjoy talking about the artists in Ugly. I enjoy talking about their work. And because I believe in them, and I believe in how talented they are, it kind of came naturally and fell into place.”
As such, Goin says, Ugly as a gallery will always be artist-friendly and artist-first. “We have really cut our commission down really low,” he says. “We don’t have any kind of exclusivity things going on. We want to create opportunities and not take away opportunities. And so, hopefully the more ugly grows, this gives people opportunities to meet other people, meet other collectors — if somebody can take a big step, then we feel like we’ve done our job.”
For the gallery’s Saturday opening, all of Ugly’s artists will be on display. Amy LaVere will be playing, and Ballet Memphis will pay homage to all art forms with a short dance performance.
The members of the Ugly Art Company are Anderson Goin, Genevieve Farr, Zack Orsborn, Hank Smith, Jojo Brame, Heather Howle, Ivy-Jade Edwards, Will Ferguson, Olivia Malone, Sarah Schulman, Sam Reeves Hill, Plastik Olives (Paige Ellens), Rodney Ellis, and Logan Daws.
Follow the Ugly Art Company on Instagram (@theuglyartco). Visit their website here.
Ugly Art Company Grand Opening, 635 Madison Avenue, April 27, 6 p.m.
