Clementine ‘sisters’ bow out

Clementine ‘sisters’ bow out—with no regrets

By Diane Vacca

The Clementine Gallery, a vital part of the Chelsea art scene since it opened in 1996, will close its doors in West Chelsea for the last time on Saturday. Despite its success in launching new artists and fostering their careers, Clementine saw its sales decline through late last fall and winter.

The gallery’s owners, Elizabeth Burke and Abby Messitte, are resigned to the bittersweet ending of their ambitious longtime venture.

By their own accounts, Burke and Messitte have been fiscally responsible and very conservative in their business decisions throughout the 12 years they’ve been in business. Nevertheless, over the past several months, longstanding clients worried by the downturn in the economy have been reluctant to spend money on art.

“Seasoned collectors don’t trust the market,” Burke said. “Things have gotten too high too fast.” She noted that shows that would have sold out in the past no longer could.

Messitte explained that because the W. 27th St. gallery never garnered huge profits, the owners didn’t have the padding to see them through a run of lean months.

In mid-March, the two took a hard look at their numbers. They decided that even though they could tough it out for a while by borrowing, they were afraid of incurring debt, especially because the summer months have always been slower.

“Or we could get out now and not owe our artists or our vendors any money,” Messitte said. “It’s the right and responsible decision.”

Nearby galleries deny, however, that they are experiencing similar hardship. Michael Gillespie, an owner of Foxy Production on the same block as Clementine between 11th and 12th Aves., does lots of business with European collectors, whose euros insulate them in the U.S. At the ATM Gallery, also on the same block, Bill Brady said he’s seen no slowdown.

But, Messitte added, “They are traditionally tight-lipped; they don’t necessarily want to share that things aren’t going well because you have to fake it till you make it. We have always done the same thing.”

In 1994, Burke was an artist in her mid-20s when she decided she wanted to own a gallery. She was introduced to Messitte, who had just completed an MA in art history and was working in a Soho gallery.

“We had lunch, we became partners, and we’ve been together ever since,” Burke said. They complemented each other: Burke, the artist, thinks “out of the box,” while Messitte is focused and pragmatic.

They imagined a gallery that “didn’t exist yet, showcasing emerging artists and bringing them together with emerging collectors,” Burke explained. No one had targeted “people who were ready to get rid of the posters off their walls from college and actually buy a piece of art that they could afford.

“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Burke confessed, “so we bought books on how to start a business. We got a common-sense MBA. And from scratch, we made it happen.”

With no money and no real backing, they took the business plan they developed over the next year and a half to friends and relatives who believed in them and donated anywhere from $100 to $1,000.

By October of 1996, they had amassed the princely sum of $60,000— enough to cover their expenses for the first year. (Now, 12 years later, they have to sell at least $80,000 every month to cover expenses.)

Both women lived in Chelsea, and they found space on the second floor of 526 W. 26th St. at a time when only a handful of galleries existed in West Chelsea between 10th and 11th Aves. By naming the gallery after Clement Clarke Moore, they paid homage not only to the local luminary, but to Chelsea, Moore’s country estate that occupied the land which still bears its name.

They had to keep second jobs, working seven days a week and splitting the gallery hours in order to keep Clementine open full time.

After the first five years, the gallery was able to support them, but it was always “a labor of love with very little financial reward,” Messitte explained. They operated on a shoestring budget, with no money for advertising, and relied on reviews for publicity. Their first priority, Burke said, was to pay their artists right away.

“Clementine was a home to all of us,” she said. “We weren’t cutthroat businesswomen out to conquer the world. We just wanted to take really good care of our home front. The artists really felt nurtured, and we got a lot out of that… We also became really close to our collectors in a way that neither of us expected.”

Two years ago, the pioneers moved west across 11th Avenue, where no galleries had ventured before. They loved their new, larger space at 623 W. 27th St., where they were finally on the ground floor. With their colleagues they formed NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) and together negotiated favorable terms in their new home, the Terminal Warehouse.

The decision to invest in several very ambitious—and expensive—installations in the past year indirectly contributed to the slowdown. In April of 2007, for example, Alexander Lee transformed the gallery into a Tahitian island. Such elaborate productions were a big step up for Clementine, but also more challenging and harder to sell. Those exhibitions “gave us a lot of street credibility but ended up not being huge money-makers. It was a choice we deliberately made because we wanted to step it up,” Messitte acknowledged.

Yet despite the situation they now find themselves in, neither Burke nor Messitte has any regrets. They enabled artists like Lee to realize their visions, “and we felt proud to support that,” Messitte said. “But it was costly.” she added ruefully.

Burke then described another “phenomenal” show that Clementine financed. “Most art dealers wouldn’t have made that decision, because [we knew we weren’t] going to make a lot of money. It wasn’t necessarily the smartest business decision, but it was an excellent life decision.”

According to Messitte, “The strength of our partnership has always been the focal point of the gallery and why we’ve been able to develop such great relationships with collectors, artists, curators and critics over the years.”

“We’re like sisters,” Burke added.

Robyn O’Neil, whose work has been shown by Clementine for five years, is one of many who are upset by the gallery’s closing.

“Clementine Gallery launched my career,” she said. “I went from working a million part-time jobs and trying to make art at night to being able to sustain a good living now because of what they’ve done…Within the first year of working with them, I got into the Whitney Biennial. What’s going to be hardest to find is the family atmosphere that Clementine provided all their artists.”