Making Art in Baltimore: an Interview with Daniel Stuelpnagel

Painting since 1985, Daniel Stuelpnagel studied at Davidson College in North Carolina and then at MICA. Stuelpnagel has spent time painting in the Galápagos Islands, Italy, Spain, Northern California and most recently, Hawaii. The artist’s unique abstract paintings are included in numerous private collections and have been commissioned for corporate collections, including the law offices of Funk & Bolton in Philadelphia and Baltimore. During 2006, the artist helped establish Load of Fun Studios in the Station North Arts District of Baltimore and was the February, 2007 cover story of the bilingual Japanese art magazine, BIFROST. Stuelpnagel currently works out of two studios in Baltimore City.

You’ve traveled around a lot – creating in locations around the world and across the country. How does life as a working artist in Baltimore compare?
You experience different influences everywhere, and a working-class city like Baltimore is a wonderful place to be prolific, to interact and also to be secluded when that is essential. In terms of an art-critical group of artists, dealers and collectors, Baltimore makes for a tough audience, and it’s a relatively small and very competitive world. The standards here are as challenging as San Francisco or New York, where the volume is higher but the aesthetic is also more market-driven, pop-culture, in short more forgiving. The close-knit art community in Baltimore is a continuous cycle of inspiration and creation.

As an artist, what would you like to see changed about Baltimore?
Nothing. Everything is changing in a natural cycle anyway; this is a very unique time. I happen to believe that Baltimore has for artists some of the important attributes of New York in the ‘50’s, or San Francisco in the ‘30’s or even Paris in the 1920’s. Cost of living is relatively low, studio space is cheap and plentiful. And our position between Washington, DC and Philadelphia brings a vibrant music scene and constant interchange of influences.

Has Baltimore hit its stride artistically?
We’re getting there. I hope that our efforts will continue the cycle of growing a grassroots arts scene. We can progress to greater sustainability that will make it tougher for emerging artists to go elsewhere when their work is appreciated here on the home front, both critically and financially. Part of that is the recognition by Baltimore collectors that the emerging artists within the city are potentially the world-class art investments of tomorrow. This can be a self-fulfilling belief, when patrons of the arts can invest in the careers of local artists, thus financing their continuing endeavors. Creatively, there is already so much to experience and appreciate here.

Baltimore artists are frustrated by the lack of venues here to show and sell their work. What’s your take on this?
There’s a difference between places to show artwork and places to sell artwork. Baltimore has no shortage of either, looking at the exciting multimedia and integrated exhibitions happening at Whole, G-Spot, Station North, SubBasement, MICA, and more mainstream venues like Creative Alliance, MAP and School 33…most emerging artists start with alternative spaces. And there are more galleries and established venues than ever before, with three new galleries opening in the past year and more in the pipeline.

Do you think that Baltimore galleries have an obligation to show work by Baltimore artists?
No. Galleries cast a wide net and bring in work that satisfies their standards of quality, their specific aesthetic considerations, and, realistically, what the dealer thinks their clients will be interested in purchasing. I think galleries feel inclined to show out of town artists – it’s easier for them to bring in and sell more established outsiders than to consistently take chances on local artists. There is an easy cachet to exhibiting work by a New York artist, for example, and the ratio of artists to galleries ensures there will always be plenty of artists eagerly waiting in the wings for exhibition opportunities in all regional markets. But I do believe that Baltimore artists are more than up to the challenge of regional, national and even international competition in the free market.

People are constantly comparing Philadelphia’s art scene with Baltimore’s. Is this a fair comparison?
Aesthetically I see pretty close parallels in the galleries. There is continuing interest in contemporary narrative surrealism, and many artists building on 20th century foundations to create some fascinating new genres; there is vibrant activity in photography, political and social commentary through installations and electronic media, and the austerity of elegant and persistent minimalism; if anything I think the Philadelphia exhibitions that I see appear somewhat less heterogeneous than those here in Baltimore, so perhaps the more fully-developed art markets also necessarily become more self-referential and less aesthetically diverse.

Along these lines then, how would you convince collectors to purchase artwork by Baltimore artists?
Some of the most interesting and exciting art is coming out of MICA, being a focal point of a generation of emerging artists. The students and recent graduates are producing multi-dimensional, highly focused, sophisticated work. Their art reflects our world, the reality of technology being so integrated into their lives and the global interactions that emerge, as well as the dualistic response of immersion in our natural environments. As an artist, I view this as inspiration. As a collector – they’re the wave of the future.

Is there a Baltimore art aesthetic?
Authenticity. Baltimore’s critical sensibility emerges from authenticity. People in this city are discerning in a grass roots way. It’s a visceral and honest culture with high expectations, and I think it is a tough set of criteria to satisfy, that speaks well of the Baltimore art audience. I always wonder what it’s like for out of town artists to show here. Baltimore is judgmental…in a good way. If you can measure up here as an artist, you should have a huge sense of pride.

So what you’re saying is, ‘if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,’? I thought that was New York.
Yeah, well…I guess it’s Baltimore too.

Labels: Daniel Stuelpnagel

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