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 Gallery owner Richard Howard-Griffin plans to pay the rent
from sales at other shows. For now, he is providing the first
ever gallery space to an artist who has already won recognition
in the underground art world and many thousands of followers.
"Phlegm is immensely respected around the world", after more
than a decade of painting enormous urban murals across Europe
and in the United States, Howard-Griffin said.
A new, mass audience has emerged for street art as the Internet
and smart phone cameras enable people to capture images and
share them across the world.
Howard-Griffin calls it the "democratization of art" and said he
wants the gallery to act as a conduit for this new wave of
artists, rather than an arbiter.
"In the past, museums were how Joe Public got to see artwork",
and the artist depended on an elite audience of gallery owners
and museum curators to win recognition, Howard-Griffin said.
"Street art plays to a huge audience, but it doesn't have an
elite audience."
Phlegm — who Howard-Griffin says "doesn't care about money" — makes a modest living by selling a limited number of his prints
and books directly to fans. He took six weeks to build his show,
called The Bestiary.
THE ARTIST AND THE OLD DOG
This is only the second show for the Howard Griffin Gallery. Its
first last September did make money, around 70,000 pounds
($115,000), for the gallery and the artist — Londoner John
Dolan, who was then homeless.
For three years, Dolan had sat at the same spot on the inner
city borough's High Street, drawing cityscapes of gritty London
and portraits of George, the Staffordshire bull terrier at his
side.
Meanwhile, Howard-Griffin, 31, had quit his job in a corporate
law firm to try to make a living from his interest in street art — leading guided tours, curating small group shows and
organizing festivals and mural projects.
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 He saw Dolan drawing day after day, liked his work
and proposed doing a show. The owners of an unused storefront across
the street offered the space.
It took 11 months to organize. Howard-Griffin recruited well-known
street artists to add fantasy touches to Dolan's citscapes. The
roughly 100 pieces in "George the Dog and John the Artist" all sold.
It was originally meant to be a one-off. "(But) the
John show did so well that it gave me the resources and impetus to
fund this gallery," Howard-Griffin said.
Dolan, who said he has signed a book deal on his life story,
describes himself as the gallery's resident artist. He can often be
seen there drawing, while George sits in the window and helps
attract visitors.
"The gallery launched me, and I launched the gallery," Dolan said.
For his next show, Howard-Griffin plans to feature Thierry Noir, a
55-year-old French artist who lived in a squat in Berlin and painted
miles of the Wall from 1984 until it fell in 1989, dodging arrest by
the East German police.
His exploits took place long before the rise of an Internet
audience, and the forthcoming show will be his first solo
exhibition, Howard-Griffin said. "He has nowhere near the level of
recognition in the art world that he deserves."
(Editing by John Stonestreet)
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