Artist Leopoldo Goût and the West Town gallery that sparked his return to shows
When renowned artist, filmmaker and author Leopoldo Goût learned about what transpires at Lucca Colombelli's Chicago gallery, he knew he wanted to participate.
Povos Gallery West Town, first an online gallery created years ago by Colombelli, is home to Goût's “Elefante” through Dec. 31. It's the first gallery show in over a decade for the multidisciplinary artist from Mexico City.
The exhibition at the West Town gallery space is filled with bronze sculptures made by Goût, along with four large tapestries (that take a full year to make) made of wool, dyed by fourth-generation weaver Antonio Ruíz Mendoza in Mexico. There are several oil and acrylic paintings and a video, and a homemade audio system spins a record specifically produced for the show.
Povos' model drew Goût's attention because the gallery is dedicated to showcasing artists without traditional "ins" to the art world. Artists are invited to the gallery at no cost, and Colombelli handles all the logistics, insurance and shipping details. Revenue from art sales is shared with the artist.
Colombelli, 25, says he doesn’t know what he’s doing most days. But his successful, people-centered approach to gallery spaces is working.
"Povos" is a Portuguese word that means "people." It's a nod to Colombelli's Brazilian roots.
Povos teamed up with Winston Guo, a curator who resides in China. In September, they brought in work from four Chinese artists for a show called "Fán Yīn" at their downtown gallery, 600 W. Van Buren St. On Nov. 15, Brazilian artist Carolina Pereira will make her U.S. debut at Povos Gallery West Town.
Colombelli and Guo confidently believe in Povos' model. It's gotten attention from the fine arts company Sotheby's. They've taken their ideas outside of the U.S. and are working to bring in more artists from around the globe.
"The way I think of it is like if you come into [our] house, it's like Latin America. We'll take care of you, and I'll introduce you to people. And what you do with that is up to you," Colombelli said. "What we have in house, everything is theirs.
"We kind of had a foot in the door a year ago. Now, we're really in and we can do a lot. We can do big exhibitions and we can bring in artists and get them from zero to hero," Colombelli said. "The most exciting part is the fact that there's endless possibilities. .... It's a lot of work that makes it work. We all work 60- to 80-hour weeks every week with still no salary. That's a hardcore way to do business. We're all in."
Colombelli describes himself as "ambitious." He doesn't see his gallery's trend of artist-centered shows ending anytime soon, and intends to keep fees for artists featured in the space at zero.
"I think it frustrates people sometimes in the art world because there's a pretense," Colombelli said. "It doesn't have to be so inaccessible, right?"
That's what Goût loved so much about Povos' mission.
Around the year 2007, Goût's home in Mexico burned down, and with the loss of a lot of his art, it also burned out some of his desire to work as a traditional artist.
Goût felt "depressed" and "discombobulated" in the wake of losing his home, he said. Simultaneously, his career as an author and film producer took off.
He worked with Mos Def on an album cover and Idris Elba on the U.K. drama "RAVI." He wrote a series of action-packed novels called "Genius," and has worked on music videos for artists like Mumford & Sons and David Byrne.
But, Goût never stopped making art. It took some special convincing from his industry peers — and one fateful meeting with Colombelli — to want to enter the gallery space again.
"I felt personally that I wanted to align myself with a young gallery and somebody a little mad. [Someone] that was not afraid of my path. I'm messy, I'm weird. ... I don't fit in the Mexican art world or the New York art world," Goût said.
Goût is not your Average Joe. He's self-described as someone who has vivid dreams and a wild imagination. In conversation, he is extremely detailed and might come across as disorganized, especially since he juggles so many projects at once, but he's quite the opposite.
Colombelli shares the same ambition.
Last May the two met at a dinner party hosted by film producer, Chicagoan and Gertie cultural consultancy company founder Abby Pucker in Goût's New York City art studio.
In hindsight, both think Pucker strategically placed them next to each other. The creative collaboration known as "Elefante" quickly followed their kinship.
"She knew that Lucca has the same kind of ambition that I do," Goût said. "I felt it in our meeting. I felt it in our conversations."
Colombelli traveled to Goût's New York studio and hand-selected the pieces to be shown in the West Town gallery.
Goût said his work exists between dreams and reality, resembling those hazy moments before fully waking up.
Memory plays a big role in all of his pieces. The giant abstract elephants, the show's focal point, came to life after a happy accident in the studio.
"So the paint falls and it makes this elephant, and it took me straight into [when] I was probably 5 years old," he said.
The shape of the paint spill transported him to the moment his beloved late mother took him to a petting zoo to see elephants. At the time, his only idea of what the creatures were like was informed by Disney's "Dumbo."
"I was an artist kid, so my brain was really messed up. So when I saw cartoons, I thought they were real things, and I couldn't understand how that big thing that I rode was able to fly. Everybody has dreams about flying. ... And it was all there in the floor of my studio and I started working with that shape for years," Goût said.
Outside of Povos, Goût's "Swarm" is a huge digital installation at 150 N. Riverside, just off Randolph Street in downtown Chicago.
This piece was inspired by the up to a billion monarch butterflies that travel to Michoacán in Mexico each year to seek warmth and reproduce. He pulled inspiration from another childhood memory: when he traveled to see the butterflies for the first time.
And Goût's ambition cannot be contained: He revealed the biggest project to come is another tapestry that will take years to make — this time so big that Goût and the Ruiz Mendoza family need to build a custom loom.