Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2008 > October > 28 > Entry
Greg Miller at Spazio
Let’s just agree that he was ahead of his time. When Lytle Pressley opened Spazio in 1999, almost no one believed a high-end modernist/contemporary furniture gallery with a sprinkling of expensive art would survive on West Sixth Street. Sure, the high-tech boom had spread wealth near and far, but faux Tuscan villas in the hills far outnumbered the few examples of modernist Central Austin infill.
Lytle Pressely with Haven Farcy, who hung the show, and Diana Amador. Note the easy mix of cultures.
Not only did Pressley survive the tech bust that followed, he proved the skeptics, like myself, wrong. Now, a parade of smaller, but equally high-minded furniture stores — including Kirk, Loft and Design within Reach — compete for the same downtown market, as multiplying modernist residence towers provide a ready supply of shoppers.
Joy Kling, Susan Brandt — mix in more cultures.
Pressley has not given up on art, either. Saturday, he opened a show for Greg Miller, whose big, graphically sophiticated concentrations of American pop culture seem as much at home in Austin as in his current base, Los Angeles. Already, several of the pricier pieces had sold, pre-opening.
Artist Greg Miller and girlfriend, graphic designer Barbara Chan
One of the joys of this job is reconsidering people on repeated exposure. I can’t claim to know Pressley personally, and this black-clad, silver-maned, vaguely distant figure — who might look more comfortable in Berlin or Chelsea — usually hovers in the margins of his own shows. But I’m now willing to give Pressley credit: He saw this trend coming, identified it as “Austin” and as his own.
Comments
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By Rita
November 15, 2008 9:08 AM | Link to this
Congratulations. That is a very nice picture of you and commentary..rita
By dk
November 12, 2008 8:21 PM | Link to this
love the sandals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lov u baby
deb