Art In The Family

ART IN THE FAMILY

On March 31^st AXOM Gallery and Exhibition Space will be opening its doors as Rochester’s newest contemporary art gallery.  Located in the Neighborhood of the Arts, the gallery is the second generation extension of the family business, owned and operated by artist, Rick Muto and designer, Robin Muto. The gallery’s director and primary curator is their daughter, Margot Muto.

After graduating high school, majoring in visual arts from Rochester’s School of the Arts, Margot continued her formal education at The Cleveland Institute of Art and Rochester Institute of Technology, and holds a BFA in Painting and Printmaking.

In preparation for this new venture, Margot has spent over a year consulting with commercial gallery owners, art consultants, academic and museum gallery directors to formulate their business model.  Meetings with artists who exhibit in galleries in larger cities, such as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia aided in developing a better understanding of the artist-gallery relationship from the artist’s perspective.   “It is important to our arts community that we become more and more interactive with artists and art institutions in and outside of the Greater Rochester region for the cultural growth of everyone, including our very own artists”, says Margot. “The art world today is increasingly broad as the boundaries of ‘what art is’ dissolves. The growing forces of Installation and New-media art continue to break down the traditional definitions of art. Our intention is to allow the gallery to grow organically, to be responsive to the changing art market and to explore collaborations with other galleries, institutions and curators. Using the paradigm of the ‘Exhibition Space’ will provide us with a dynamic arena to support rather that suture the artist/gallery relationship, allowing ourselves the flexibility to evolve with the market, and therefore, more opportunities to create provocative programming for our visitors”.

As advisors and co-curators, Rick and Robin Muto bring their own expertise to the table.

Robin began her career as a ceramist and currently works in interior and lighting design.  Exploring the connections between craft, art and design is the curatorial focus of Robin’s contribution to AXOM Gallery. In addition to curating, Robin will be creating the lighting design to bring out the full potential of each exhibit.

Rick’s active contribution to AXOM as co-curator is his seasoned expertise and knowledge of art in the context of Art History, shedding light on the relationship between contemporary art and the movements of the past.  His lifelong career of creating artwork in living spaces, both private and public, brings another perspective to the gallery’s mission of pairing the artists and their work to a diverse clientele

The Muto’s are hosting a public opening On April 6 with the work of Paul Garland, a Professor of Art Emeritus at SUNY Oswego, whose studio is located in Fair Haven New York.  The Show, ‘Convergence’, is an extended series of three bodies of work, two of which, non-objective abstractions, and representational landscapes, merge and intersect into the third. Paul’s work was chosen as the inaugural show because of his pivotal influence on Rick’s career as an artist when he was a student.

AXOM Gallery & Exhibition Space is Rochester’s latest contemporary art forum which serves to challenge and expand the public understanding of contemporary art and design.

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AXOM Gallery, Rochester’s new Exhibition Space for Contemporary Visual Arts will be open Monday-Friday 10:00AM-5:00PM and by Appointment by calling 585-232-6030 x 23 or email:margot@axomgallery.com.  The Gallery is located at 176 Anderson Ave., Rochester, NY 14607.  All are invited to the grand opening, presenting Paul Garland “Convergence”, on April 6 from 6-9PM. Artist talk will be held May 3 from 6:30 – 9 pm