Gallery 1581
Gallery 1581 was founded in 2001 by Mara Wagner, Gunta Kaza, Jim Morrell and other BGSP faculty members, artists themselves, who wanted to bring their artistic and psychoanalytic lives together. Our mission is to maintain a space where artists and analysts can meet and share visions of a world where creativity fuels constructive dialogue between people interested in deep understanding of our human family. We are in pursuit of leading more fulfilling lives. We host group and solo exhibitions, as well as dialogues in which established and emerging artists are welcome.
The gallery is housed inside the public spaces of The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (1581 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02446) on three floors. We are open weekdays between 9:00am and 7:00pm, and Saturdays by appointment.
Current Show
Currently, we are displaying our permanent collection featuring many pieces donated by artists who have participated in former exhibitions. Notable pieces are by Clara Wainwright, Heddi Siebel, Adrian Kellard, Joel Moskowitz, Randy LeSage, Dana Kim Woolfson, Sandra Mayo, Leela Wagner, Jeremy Durling, John Baker, Robin Dash, Audrey Jones, Kurt Fabian, Maureen Walsh, John Barnard, Jehudit Feinstein, Helen Palucci, Joanna He, Narges Nadim, Eugene Goldwater, Gunta Kaza, Mara Wagner and others.
We will hold a sale of some of these works beginning in September 2024 to make space for new work. Please drop in to see what is offered.
Upcoming Show: pARTners
Please join us at Gallery 1581 inside the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis for a reception celebrating the opening night of our new exhibition: pARTners. The exhibit highlights creative works from our partners who are committed, along with us, to increasing the access to quality mental health in our community. It’s been a long time since we had new work in the gallery. Let’s celebrate together!
Opening Reception: Friday, November 1, 2024 | 5:30-8:30 PM
Exhibition Dates: November 1 – January 31
Image: Valerie Spain, 2024
Call for Work: pARTners
We invite our BGSP artists and our partners in clinics, hospitals, mental health agencies, community arts organizations and friendship networks to submit work.
There is no theme per se but work that centers partnership of all sorts will be most welcome: people with people, people with the environment, earth with sky, light with darkness, small with large, real with imagined, local with international. In the world of the unconscious where psychoanalysts spend most of our time, opposites have more in common than it would seem!
The gallery receives a commission of 30% on works sold. 70% is delivered to the artist. If you would like to donate the full proceeds of the sale of your work to our fundraising campaign, please let us know at drop-off.
Important Dates
Drop-Off and Jury: Saturday October 26th, 10:00am–1:00pm or by prior arrangement before this date.
Late submissions cannot be considered. Please print hard copies and fill out the information labels below and bring them to drop-off along with a hard copy of your artist statement if you have one. We will have extra copies at check-in as well.
All artwork must be for sale and sold work will remain on view until closing. The non-refundable entrance fee for one work is $15, two works $20, payable at drop-off by cash or check.* Work will be juried by the exhibition committee of BGSP with an eye toward mounting a harmonious, exciting, and diverse show.
Notification of Selected and Unselected Work will be sent by email Sunday, October 27th or Monday, October 28th. Notification will come from gallery1581@bgsp.edu or from drmarawagner@gmail.com.
Return of Unselected Work: Tuesday October 29th, 10:00am–4:00pm in the main office of the graduate school, or Saturday November 2nd, 10:00am–12:00pm in the lobby of the gallery, or by prior arrangement by emailing gallery1581@bgsp.edu or drmarawagner@gmail.com.
Pick-up of Unsold Work: Saturday February 1st, 10:00am–2:00pm, or Sunday February 2nd, 10:00am–2:00pm, or by prior arrangement with drmarawagner@gmail.com. Work not scheduled for pick-up by February 7th may be kept for our permanent collection or donated to local mental health and community organizations.
Artwork Specifications
We can consider 2D work in any size and there is no time limit within which the work must have been completed. 2D work must be firmly wired for hanging. No saw-tooth hangers or sandwich-clip frames can be accepted. 3D work must be stable and fit on a pillar of 12” square diameter. We are not equipped to exhibit video work.
Entering the exhibition gives Gallery 1581 the right to use image(s) of your work for marketing and publicity purposes, giving you proper credit. We are not able to purchase special insurance riders to cover the listed price of specific expensive works exhibited. Since our founding in 2001, none of the artwork has ever been stolen or damaged, including small portable pieces. And we plan to keep it that way.
*If the fee poses a genuine hardship, it will be waived. We will take your word for it.
Necessary Forms
Please print and bring the completed forms with you to artwork drop-off:
Past Shows
Artists we have featured
Please see below for a small selection of artists we have featured in past exhibitions:
- BGSP affiliates – students, faculty, staff, visitors, analysands, agency partners
- The Brookline Arts community during Brookline Open Studio Weekends
- Featured artists in joint or solo shows: Shaun McNiff, Randy LeSage, Dana Kim Wolfson, Gunta Kaza, Valerie Spain, Joel Moskowitz, John Baker, Clara Wainwright, and many others
- Existing arts groups such as The Women’s Caucus for Art, the Putney School Summer Program, the Faith Quilt Project, local art students from colleges and universities
“Picture Social Justice and Human Rights”
Spring / Summer 2017
Our most recent group show, entitled “Picture Social Justice and Human Rights,” was designed to promote and contribute to a collective vision of social justice and human rights expressed in visual art. We invited artists, newly emerging and long-time professionals, to create art to engage the viewer, promote healing within ourselves and our world, and to inspire action for social justice.
As Dr. Jane Snyder, then President of the Boston Graduate School put it, “the show is intended to respond to, rather than replicate, the shocking images of social injustice and human wrongdoing so often seen in today’s media. As art has the capacity to empower both the artist and the viewer to facilitate transformation, the artwork in this group exhibition has the potential to convey profound inspiration and a call to action.”
Wendy Forrester, then gallery curator and manger, commented, “We invited submissions of artwork to expand a global consciousness and inspire a humane perspective. We believe this show will serve to awaken our hope and promote more constructive action in individuals, groups, and communities.” Altogether, 350 pieces were submitted from which a three-person jury selected 73 pieces from 62 artists. Mediums include painting, sculpture, ceramic, monotype, pastel, watercolor, and giclée from artists across the United States and as far away as Turkmenistan. The artists themselves represent a range of ages, cultures, genders and sexual identities, countries of origin, subject matters, and art media. What unites all the artists, the jurors, and the Boston Graduate School is a passion for art and a collective dedication to social justice and human rights.”
Image: Sandra Mayo, “Fragmented Pain, Fragmented Justice”
“Contact”
2007
Students at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis organized an art exhibition, “Contact,” that brought two distinct groups of students into a shared dialogue. The show exhibited art student’s photographs alongside psychoanalytic “responses” created by current BGSP students. The responses involved many different creative media, including: music, painting, writing, poetry, plant-life and drawing.
This project began in September 2007 when a “call for submissions” was put out to many of Boston’s local art schools, asking for students to submit work relating to the theme of “contact”. The show was both juried and curated by world-renowned photographer Shellburne Thurber, who herself has a personal interest in psychoanalysis and had an exhibition called “Psychoanalytic Interiors” that showed in both New York and Boston (see link at the end of this article for details).
The jurying process led to the submission of eighteen framed photographs by seventeen different artists. Fifteen BGSP students then volunteered to respond to the photographs in whichever creative medium they chose.
To make the process truly reflective of the show’s title, the photography students were given the contact details of the BGSP responder so that they might discuss their photograph, their work or anything else about the process that might come up for them. Consequently, the two sets of students were in an active dialogue that affected and shaped the creation of the psychoanalytic responses.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the project was the discussion that followed on opening night (Friday, March 7th, 7:30pm at BGSP). Both groups of students were on a panel to discuss their experiences of creating the original work and then having a dialogue with the responder, of being responded to, of responding, of viewing another’s response, etc.
In many ways the process of the show mimicked an analytic exchange, where experience is represented in a medium (words/photographs) that is communicated to another (analyst/responder). What happens next in the exchange (how the analyst/responder responds to the initial contact) was the visual subject of this show.
“Contact” opened on Friday, March 7th at Gallery 1581 inside BGSP. Link to Thurber article: http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/jsaltz/saltz4-2-04.asp
Edited content, originally by Ali McKnight