STU EMERGING AS A LEADER IN ART MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

Veteran Art Dealer Gail Casale, talks at the Cremata Fine Art Gallery about the practices of “Art for Profit”. Casale is owner of the Frederick Clement Gallery and has been director of the Soho Gallery for over 20 years. She is also the director of St. Thomas University’s gallery Jorge A. Sardiñas. The talk was the culmination of a series of seminars by experts on the art business organized by the faculty of St. Thomas University’s Art Management Master program.

In times of economic trouble, an art gallery may seem to be a very distant place for art lovers and quite a challenge for gallery owners needing to survive the recession. St. Thomas University’s Institute for Communication, Entertainment and Media has been ahead of the game in higher education by creating a MA degree with a specialization in Art Management that can be finalized in approximately 18 months.  In partnership with the University of Venice, Italy, this program gives a comprehensive understanding of business and cultural aspects in managing art galleries, museums and artistic events.

The University has partnered with Cremata Fine Art gallery in Little Havana’s Calle Ocho, which provided the gathering place, has sponsored a number of STU art events and launched a series of art seminars. Under the leadership of Dean Gloria Ruiz and professor and art critic Justo J. Sanchez, the series culminated on Friday June 27, with a talk by veteran New York art dealer, Gail Casale, who spoke from the general to very specific practices of selling fine art and the troubles the economic recession brings to the art business. “Art for Profit,” which was the name of Casale’s seminar, was a short introduction of her 20 plus years of experience in the business. Casale started by opening a gallery in Soho, New York at the hype of the market. “You never sat waiting for people to come in, there was people buying art the whole day,” Casale said.

Ms. Casale’s talk was part of an art curating course within STU’s School of Leadership Studies graduate program, organized under the leadership of Professor Justo J. Sanchez. Most recently, Professor Sanchez brought the Director of the internationally influential Rubell Collection, writer and curator Mark Coetzee - a graduate of the College de France, the Sorbonne, and a published author with London's Phaidon Press – to the university so students could expand their cultural horizons. The class also toured the Bass Museum in a coordinated effort of Professor Sanchez and Gary Farmer, the Interim Director of the Bass Museum.

Times have changed and smaller galleries are the most affected ones in today’s recession. It takes proactive entrepreneurs like Raul and Lourdes Cremata to lead collectors to spend on a piece and not hold back in commodities. To overcome the recession, artist Raul Cremata and wife Lourdes continue to host important openings and provide a gathering place for art education and cultural enrichment through associating with a university. They keep in touch with collectors, going to their homes and offices to reorganize their artwork so that they can have more space for another piece.

About 40 art management students, artists, faculty and gallery owners attended Casale’s seminar.

Gail Casale talks to School of leadership Studies Dean Gloria Ruiz, who organized the seires of seminars by experts on the business of art.

Gail Casale talks to Cremata Fine Art gallery owner and artist Raul Cremata. The gallery has been opened in Little Havana since 2006 and was the location for the series of seminars by experts on the art business, which started in May.