The Union Label

Family affair: Union 237 director of art Brian Brown (far left) offered the Tiberino family of artists -- including (l-r) Raphael, Joseph and Gabriel -- their own exhibition at the gallery.

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Old City's newest gallery, Union 237, plans world domination.

by A.D. Amorosi

At first glance, Union 237 -- a five-month-old gallery near Third and Market -- seems a perfect spot for meditation. Formerly home to Horton Gallery, Union 237's 4,000 square feet of high white ceilings and walls is immediately calming. There's even a division, stylistically, in which to ensure such peace: A subway-inspired iron gate designed by Philly's Albino Rhino bridges the gap between the basement's urban arts (a hip-hop gallery space that sells Ropeadope T-shirts and spray paint) and its fine arts upstairs.

The calm doesn't last, what with director of art Brian Brown having to rap insistently into his cell phone about one of several of the next week's events while one of Union 237's homemade films spools onto its room-center screen. Along with taking down Union 237's current show of sociopolitical art, "Under Deconstruction: Mear and Marka27," and planning Union 237's contribution to May's First Friday -- the mammoth undertaking that will be his tribute to West Philly's Tiberino family of artists -- Brown is booking a May 7 Electric Factory concert for the gallery's backers: Union LLC's Phunk-Shway with Ghostface Killah (see Music Pick on p. 40).

"The concert is for financial gain as we are not a not-for-profit," says Brown, 32, of positioning the Union label beyond First Friday into the realm of fashion shows and hair extravaganzas where the gallery has gone in the last several weeks. "Like the art we show, 237 is not a gallery or idea exclusive to any select form of creativity." This branding extends itself not only to the medium of what Union 237 shows and promotes -- fine art, sculpture, film, performance art -- but to the message. For while Union 237's most recent exhibits have been urban, ethnic or political in nature (the Che-revolutionary "Deconstruction," photojournalist Adrian Wecer's stark war snaps, the melting-pot aesthetic of the Tiberinos' wrenching murals), Brown states Union 237's true intention is to house artists, both local and international, with the biggest voices. "Why limit the gallery to one market when there is so much we can provide the community?"

Brown, a West Mt. Airy native, was a self-taught urban artist and muralist, working with spray enamel on walls as well as acrylics on canvas before realizing his eye for artwork was best attuned to curating. Asked if he was a successful painter, Brown is frank. "No. To be successful in art takes commitment to sacrifice. Sacrifice is a due to be paid and some are far too selfish, hence my artistic career." But here, Brown has found his niche.

Union 237 is meant to function primarily as a new modern and fine arts gallery within Old City's old guard ("I'm not sure if our gallery and theirs have any similarities, but the owners here have been encouraging"). To that end, Brown and his marketing associate, Andrew Chew, seek communion with those who agree to do shows.

"I don't think what I base my gallery decisions on is whim or instinct," says Brown. "I think we work with only the most confident bodies of work. Once we choose, we don't sanitize or censor."

A confident oeuvre uncensored and unsanitized describes Philadelphia's Tiberino family. A funkier version of the Wyeth clan's landscapes, the Tiberino mural -- whether once displayed outside father Joe's legendary dive Beat bar, Bacchanal, or within the green gardens of the Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum in Powelton -- is always a deeply etched commentary on the dignity of freedom, the feelings of alienation caused by racism and the protest intrinsic to these issues. That's true not only of the late, great Ms. Ellen, but of her husband, Joseph, and their children.

"As a young artist with a sister attending CAPA, you couldn't not know about them. There weren't many art students that didn't know about the Bacchanal or even the house on 38th Street," says Brown of Philly's first family of the avant garde. The family will display its wide-ranging work -- from Mexican-style protest prints, to comic book post-pop to haunting, flag-filled landscapes with mangled bodies and sainted faces. Along with showing dozens of the clan's works on Market Street, Brown and the Tiberinos will celebrate the family's artistic lives in the gardens behind their home on 38th and Hamilton.

Like the Tiberinos, Union 237 is about the tying together of the visual, the physical, the ephemeral, the classical and the modern. "I think they do what we do at the gallery," says Brown, "help to discover the artist in you."

The Tiberino Family Exhibition, reception Fri., May 7, 7 p.m., exhibition runs through May 31, Union 237, 237 Market St., 215-627-2377, www.union237.com; Sat., May 8, noon, Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum, 3819 Hamilton St.

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there