Garfield Artworks, which launched in 1992 as the first art gallery in Garfield and a rare art space showcasing music, will close with a final event Dec. 7.
The Penn Avenue gallery, owned by Smith Hutchings and operated for the past decade by promoter Manny Theiner, has been the city’s most adventurous venue for experimental/underground acts, playing host to The Ex, Girl Talk, Don Caballero, Grand Buffet, Wolf Eyes, Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart.
Mr. Hutchings and his brother Jack, both artists and musicians, opened the space along with Jack’s artist wife, Susan, in 1992 with a show of work from scenic artists.
“There was nothing there at the time,” Mr. Hutchings said. “It was crack houses and crack bars. It was scary. Jack wanted to do something with the arts. Marshall Goodwin [a local activist and organizer] got involved and it took off.”
Unfortunately, Susan died a few years later and Jack, who now lives in Hawaii, handed the reins to Smith Hutchings, who continued to run the space in the ’90s with curator Lauri Mancuso.
Eventually, their paths would converge with Mr. Theiner, a WRCT disc jockey who started as a concert promoter by opening the Sonic Temple in Wilkinsburg in 1989 as a six-month project with two other Carnegie Mellon University students.
The venue was the first in Pittsburgh to present Nirvana, in July 1989. He followed that with shows at the Turmoil Room in Wilkinsburg and then ran the Millvale Industrial Theater in a former slaughterhouse and metal spring forge from 1998 to 2002.
Mr. Hutchings said Mr. Theiner had a falling out with his Garfield landlord and he offered him a living space there in 2004. Mr. Hutchings said, “We couldn’t make any money on the arts,” so it became primarily a venue for punk, experimental, indie, Americana and avant-garde jazz artists.
Mr. Theiner, who has written freelance music stories for the Post-Gazette, has run Garfield Artworks while also presenting shows at the Rex Theater, 31st Street Pub, Thunderbird Cafe and Synod Hall, among other venues.
Mr. Hutchings said that Mr. Theiner, who has yet to announce his plans and could not be reached for comment, told him he will open a new space in Lawrenceville.
Garfield Artworks was the first on a block that now thrives with monthly Unblurred events at Modern Formations, The Irma Freeman Center and Most Wanted Fine Art. Mr. Hutchings, who works as a set decorator for film, has yet to decide what to do with the building.
Rick Swartz, of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., said of the gallery, “They took a real chance at the time and it’s been an enduring presence on the street and it’s going to be sad to see it go.”
First Published: October 28, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
