Wednesday April 7
Working with a Commercial Gallery
with Grant Berg of the Grant Berg Gallery and Berg Gallery
and Levi Nicholat of The Gallery/Art Placement Inc.
6:30 – 8:00pm MDT/CST
Register through Eventbrite
What is a commercial gallery? How do they work? How do they differ from other kinds of public galleries/art spaces. Levi Nicholat will talk a bit about the modern history of selling art leading into how galleries generally operate today, the unique circumstances within the Canadian art market (regionalism), and some of the ways COVID-19 has impacted those operations, positively and negatively. Grant Berg will talk about how commercial galleries work as he walks you through his Grande Prairie gallery. Both Levi and Grant will discuss how to approach a gallery for the first time and how to work with a commercial gallery.
Levi Nicholat is co-owner of The Gallery/Art Placement Inc., a longstanding commercial gallery in Saskatoon that also operates a picture framing shop and art supplies store. He oversees the general operations of the businesses three departments, including the gallery’s exhibition program. Since assuming leadership in 2013, he has organized more than one hundred exhibitions and introduced nearly twenty new and emerging artists to the gallery roster. He previously served on the board of AKA artist-run centre as Treasurer, as well as on committees for the Saskatchewan Professional Art Galleries Association (SaskGalleries), including as chair of the organizing committee for the inaugural Saskatchewan Fine Art Fair in 2016. He completed a BFA and MFA at the University of Saskatchewan, with a specialization in painting. His thesis exhibition was honoured with the Graduate Thesis Award for the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Grant Berg is an artist and gallery owner with two Alberta galleries, the main gallery in Grande Prairie and a satellite gallery in Kananaskis. The galleries represent roughly 50 Canadian artists. Grant Berg’s artwork is primarily landscape sculpture mixing a Group of Seven vibe with his Cree heritage. As a COVID-19 project, Grant recently self-published a series of 3 books titled Bus Stop Philosophy covering such topics as art, politics, life death and general BS.
