About Dangenart
Dangenart Gallery is a by-artist-for-artist organization dedicated to emerging artists. Dangenart Gallery, as an alternative to the mainstream fine art galleries, was founded in 2005 to provide emerging artists with exhibition opportunities. All shows are juried exhibitions.
Through continuous international calls for entries, which are open to all artists, the gallery selects works of art solely based on its aesthetic merit. Educational, exhibition, or biographical credentials are NOT the criteria for such opportunities. Dangenart understands that museological institutions and established galleries hold no policy to seek out artists without strong credentials. We also do NOT select exclusively works that are sellable or "go well with couches or fireplaces." Artworks are selected NOT for the sake of other factors, but for art itself. Here at Dangenart, works of emerging artists that are rarely seen at other established venues get a chance to generate sales and commissions and be connected to unlimited audiences such as art collectors, art enthusiasts, other gallery owners, as well as fellow artists. We believe in one simple truth: empty resumes and lack of recognition do not entail bad art.
Artists showing at the gallery are well represented in numerous public and private domains. Dangenart Gallery is not salon style gallery. Artworks are presented with museum quality. Each exhibition is professionally curated and works selected are carefully handpicked and approved by our review board. Announcement for each show is circulated through our extensive mailing list and published as ad campaign in local newspapers and various websites. Artworks on exhibit can be for sale or not for sale (NFS) on the premises and through this online exhibition space.
location 
floor plan and interior
Dangenart's Vision and History
“Currently, in major art centers like New York, there is an emphasis on technical extremes, encompassing surprising manipulations of unlikely materials, bravura displays of draftsmanship and obsessive details. Under Daniel Lai’s curating, Dangenart tunes into that ethos and looks like it will consistently bring in au courant works with the capacity to amaze.”
David Maddox, Nashville Scene, Jul 27, 2006.
Dangenart made its debut exhibition in the middle of downtown Nashville in September 2005. The gallery opened its door with not just a mission of introducing cutting edge, contemporary art to Nashville, but with a vision of starting an art colony. In less than a year, Dangenart has done just that.
When gallery director, Daniel Lai, was in search of a location to launch the gallery, he immediately saw the potential of the Arcade, which was located in the middle of Downtown Nashville. This historic, two-story shopping mall was a popular lunch destination. However, its second level was filled with vacant units. Daniel persuaded Dangenart’s owners to base the gallery here on the balcony level of the Arcade because he had a vision that “an art oasis” within the downtown art district could begin on the second level of the Arcade. In the September 2005, Dangenart Gallery became the first gallery on the second level of the Arcade. Subsequently, Dangenart started to promote this idea of the “art oasis” in the Arcade. In less than a year the Arcade is filled with seven art galleries and artist studios. This “oasis” has been realized in this historic building. These art spaces are collectively known as “Art at the Arcade.” The official Art at the Arcade website was launched in September 2006. As the Nashville Scene art writer, David Maddox, described this phenomenon:
“Adding to Fifth Avenue’s prospects to become a lively arts district is a bustle of activity at the Arcade. Built in 1903, the Arcade has had its ups and downs—like most of downtown Nashville. Old photos show the interior lined with all sorts of businesses—a music shop, a jeweler, an optician, places selling hosiery and fixing buttons. Today it is mostly known as a place for downtown workers to grab lunch or use the post office. Given the building’s timeless architectural charm, it seems a shame there aren’t more reasons to spend time there. But that’s beginning to change, thanks to pioneers like Daniel Lai, who opened Dangenart Gallery on the second floor of the Arcade (No. 83) overlooking Fifth Avenue last year… Lai seems to have been a trailblazer into the second floor of the Arcade. Over the summer, three more spaces were rented for art uses: Twist, Matt Mikulla’s Art Rogue studio and gallery, and Bart Mangrum’s studio space.” ( Nashville Scene, Aug 3, 06.)
In another article dated July 27, 2006, entitled Off Limits – Art in the Arcade, published by the Nashville Scene, commented: “Thanks to accessible rents and an attractive environment for this sort of thing, the second floor of the Arcade downtown is becoming a virtual artist’s colony. New Jersey transplant Daniel Lai led the way last fall with his Dangenart Gallery, and this summer other galleries and studios are emerging.” (Nashville Scene, July 27, 06.)
A Promise Kept
Dangenart is a reputable gallery that was established to be in service of art and emerging artists. Artworks selected to be shown here at Dangenart are endowed with a high degree of exposures. Our reception, which is in conjunction with the Art at the Arcade group reception, generates almost a thousand guests and visitors. Local newspapers, such as n’Focus, the Tennessean, and Nashville Scene, have coined the term “the art district’s block party.” In addition, Dangenart also receives many positive reviews from them. The works by Dangenart artists such as Daniel Lai, Young Kim, Zane Pappas, and Judith Braun, are great examples. SEE Salt of the Earth.
As a result of Dangenart’s willingness to take the risk of showing new and cutting edge contemporary art, Dangenart also serves as a hub for other gallery directors, curators and collectors who are in search of new talents to view new art. The best example is the 2006 grand prize winner of the Nancie Mattice Award, Kishan Munroe. Upon his exhibition, he was selected and is currently represented by Estel Gallery, one of the most elite galleries in Nashville. His upcoming solo exhibition at Estel Gallery will be in February 2007.
Best of Nashville
In the Best of Nashville issue ( Oct 12, 2006) of the Nashville Scene top art critics and writers name Dangenart Gallery Best New Gallery in Nashville. They also attribute the genesis of downtown art district to the effort of Art at the Arcade's creative forces.
Best of Nashville, Nashville Scene
October 12, 2006 .
Daniel Lai moved here last year from New Jersey expressly to open a gallery, selecting Nashville as a place with an environment more conducive for his start-up enterprise than the cutthroat New York region. Drawing on connections from his experience back east and casting open his doors on the Internet, he has brought to his gallery in the downtown Arcade many artists new to Nashville viewers. The shows come closer than anything else in town to feeling like an extension of current aesthetics in Chelsea or Brooklyn . —DAVID MADDOX
Best Development on the Nashville Art Scene: Fifth Avenue Arts District
Nashville ’s visual arts scene has been on a steady upward trajectory for the past 10 years or so, but recent developments have solidified the city’s first bona fide arts district. For years, Anne Brown’s Arts Company was the lone art oasis on an otherwise mundane downtown block— Fifth Avenue North between Commerce and Union —until Jerry Dale McFadden’s eclectic TAG Art Gallery started renting space from Brown in 2004. The following year, artist/art historian Daniel Lai moved from New York to Nashville to open Dangenart in The Arcade. The gallery focuses on edgy art from emerging artists around the country. Just this past summer, TAG moved into its own space across the street from The Arts Company while two new venues blossomed in The Arcade: Beth Gilmore and Caroline Carlisle’s Twist gallery and Matt Mikulla’s Art Rogue studio and gallery. Now, one city block is home to five galleries covering a gamut of styles: traditional, folk, self-taught, approachable, confrontational, you name it. And with many of the galleries scheduling receptions to coincide with each other, it’s possible to see several openings in one night, from one parking space without even busting a sweat. —JACK SILVERMAN
