Golen’s gallery is set to open Sept. 8

It’s no surprise the design and renovation of Harold Golen Gallery, at the edge of Wynwood almost tucked underneath I-95, has been impeccable. Golen is a former architect and the vintage 1960s modern lighting fixtures he has mounted on the ceiling inject a bit of Jetsons luxe into the otherwise pristine white box galleries. The place resembles a museum more than a private gallery, owing to the spacious layout and the sheer number of works he has assembled. Golen’s own collecting habit began about five years ago, and he’s apparently a quick study. After quitting the architecture field, he worked at a collectibles store a friend owned on Washington Avenue, called Flashbacks. Inspired, he soon opened the doors to POP on a nearby corner, which he ran successfully for 10 years. “I sold a lot of art there, until all the artists disappeared,” he says, and then he sold the shop, which carried an array of collectible objets d’art, accessories and apparel. “Lowbrow started, and it called to me.”

Like any other galaxy within the universe of contemporary art production, the Lowbrow community supports several glossy magazines, the best known of which are Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose. There are also many areas of specialization within the ranks, characterized by subject matter rather than formal innovation, such as Beatnik, Surfer, Black Velvet, Paint by Number, ’60s TV characters, Kustom car culture, Hipster, Outsider, Pin-up and more. Although many galleries on the West Coast deal in the underground art forms, such as Copronason Gallery, La Luz de Jesus, Black Market Gallery and Mary Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles, Miami has been bereft, until now.

Golen is passionate about the scads of artworks leaning all over the walls of the gallery space, and can’t resist filling me in on each. Some highlights are Ron English, whose bawdy reinterpretation of Picasso’s “Guernica” will make some shudder. Artist Marion Peck sent a meticulously painted Realist portrait loaded with arcane symbolism. Erik Joyner’s twin obsessions of robots and donuts are on hand. One large Skot Olsen work of mariners battling a giant squid will be featured in an upcoming Florida show, because Olsen’s mock-historical narrative concerns the exploits of a missionary in early Florida. These paintings pack the wallop of masterpieces, what with the bravura painting, the over-the-top ornate frames and their size. “Most gallery dealers prefer smaller, more affordable works, but I want to bring it to the next level. I want to show bigger statements by the artists,” says Golen.

Comprising a counter counterculture, in which traditional painting techniques are deployed to produce images scraped from the underbelly and the fantasy life of American culture, Lowbrow and Pop Surrealist works are inspired by the carnival midway, the nightmares of science fiction, the cultish tattoo, the lurid sideshow. Traveling on an opposing tangent from the mainstream contemporary art world, which receives its validation from academia, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and French linguistic theory, the art arriving in Golen’s gallery speaks to a different mindset. He elucidates, “Old World crafts mixing with popular imagery. I call it Pop Surrealism. What began with the Lowbrow has taken its own legs and moved into many directions.”

A few artists are at home in both the Pop Surrealist world and the regular art world, like the Clayton Brothers, who have shown at the Drawing Center and Bellwether Gallery in New York. The transit from outsider to insider is not new in the history of art. It’s a central dynamo in American art in particular, from the Ashcan School led by Robert Henri in New York in the early 1900s to the embrace of graffiti unknowns by the gallery glitterati in New York in the 1980s. Crossover is an American phenomenon, attesting to the more fluid social mobility here and the uninhibited fulfillment of market demand.

More than 40 artists are participating in the grand opening show, many from California, the native stomping grounds of the Lowbrow movement. Golen believes that even though much of this stuff emanates from Los Angeles culture, it’s at home here in Miami. “Think of roadside attractions and tourist kitsch.” I remember the Weeki Wachee mermaids, and I think he’s on to something. Even though a born and bred Miamian, Golen said, “I’m an L.A. person. California has an optimism. Miami, and the Latin American art here, can be depressing. It’s so sad.” We chatted about how the political focus of much Latin American art is a necessary response to the parade of dictatorships and disappearances, revolutions that promised the sky and kept people as downtrodden as ever. Contrast that with the land of the Beach Boys and I understood his thinking. Near the gallery entrance, there’s an intimate show of mostly Mexican-made illustrations for movie posters, exploring another area of Golen’s interest, which he calls “cheesy ephemera.” Snippets of commercial art were — and undoubtedly are still — produced anonymously for print reproduction. Salvaging some of these mini masterworks is uncharted territory for collectors.

Golen intends to participate in international art fairs. His plans for the gallery include a psychedelic show scheduled during Art Basel in December. Although he consistently pleads that he doesn’t really know Miami artists, Golen has been acquainted with Lazaro Amaral since 1985, and he will show some of his works. Other Miami artists participating are the collaborative Friends With You, whose slick craftsmanship and Fisher Price-like user-friendliness are an irresistible combination of pop and surreal. Golen is familiar with the work of Francesco LoCastro, who has organized some informal manifestations of Lowbrow art in Miami. On the national scene, Van Arno, Liz McGrath, Sas, SHAG (a Golen favorite), Coop, Erik Joyner, Ron English and Anthony Ausgang will exhibit. Definitely not an individual who does anything at half-measure, Golen has a well-stocked T-shirt, lunch box and figurine department, and better still, a library of handsome coffee table volumes devoted to the careers of individual artists and the entire scene.

The gallery’s grand opening exhibition will be Saturday, Sept. 8, 7 to 11 p.m. in conjunction with the Wynwood Second Saturday Gallery Walk. Harold Golen Gallery is located at 2921 NW Sixth Ave., Miami. Call 305-576-1880 or visit www.haroldgolengallery.com.

Editor’s Disclosure: Golen looked up Weinberg’s work after she interviewed him for this article, liked it and plans to show it in the future. Comments?

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