Interviews with Lindsay Albert and Ivana Colendich By Eva Rogers

staircase, 148 Clement St, San Francisco CA 94118

On Clement Street in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond district, dovetailed with the ACE Hardware, behind a brilliant blue door, an experiment is taking place in that familiar feature of many buildings and homes, a staircase. The directors of the experiment, Lindsay Albert and Ivana Colendich, are artists, arts administrators, collaborators, friends, creative thinkers; the participants in the experiment are artists, makers, ponderers, friends; the experiments are light and dark, colorful and monochromatic, booming and quiet, sumptuous and crisp.

Since its opening in January of 2023, staircase has shown the artists Laura Figa (some gamut), Jenna Garrett (Teeth of the Wolf), Isabella Manfredi (sew your echo), Léonie Guyer (conclave), rel robinson (My Roman Empire), tuğçe evirgen özmen (mirror remembers), and Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (DRAWINGS). staircase also showed new or related work from each artist in a retrospective at the 2024 San Francisco Art Fair.

Consider these questions: What happens when we release a sense of where art should go, how galleries and arts organizations function, what paths we are supposed to follow? We wait for perfect moments, but there are no perfect moments, and what comes of waiting? Waiting for someone to give us something when what we want is to make it ourselves; waiting for the money to accumulate that will let us do it the way we’ve been told it’s supposed to be done.

What is space and place about? How do we find places, how do we make places, how do we occupy places? How many different kinds of places do we occupy in our lives? How do we see places, or not see them at all? How do we fill or vacate spaces with our bodies, with objects, with art? Which spaces allow us to see the objects within, really see? Which spaces indicate that they are for seeing, for looking, for occupying, for experimenting? What does it take to see a space in a new and different way? There are as many ways of seeing space and place as there are people doing the work of seeing, occupying, making.

Sometimes the answer is right in front of you. staircase is a response and a step forward; an activation. It is an answer to a question, to many questions.

This piece has been edited for length and to bring together Ivana’s and Lindsay’s voices in the space of the page; the interviews were conducted separately.

‘Teeth of the Wolf’ exhibition / Artist Jenna Garrett

ER: Tell me about the origin of staircase.

IC: I think the origin of staircase is also about my and Lindsay's origin story, since it is such a collaborative space. Lindsay and I met in 2015, over nine years ago now, as employees at SFMOMA. Our desks were close to each other.

LA: We were both working in development. We ended up working on the same team after a while, and we collaborated on a project. And that blossomed into our friendship. We spent all of our time together at work and outside of work. Both of us had this deep passion for the arts, especially the Bay Area art scene. I was running SECA [SFMOMA’s SECA Art Award]. So I met all these artists and did studio visits with them.

IC: Lindsay is very welcoming, and is a high energy person. We became colleagues and friends at the same time. We left SFMOMA around the same time for different organizations, and ended up working together again years later at Minnesota Street Project. When we were working together at MSP, our desks were side by side. I would say more times than not we'd be looking at each other like, Can we do this on our own? If we could really do this our way, how would we do it? And so we had talked about something without naming it or knowing what it was for quite some time.

LA: It was like — we really want to open up a space, really want to open a space — like, what we're doing here, we could be doing for ourselves.

IC: I had the most confidence in us as being friends and knowing how to work together. Because you can't spend that much time with somebody if you don't genuinely like them or know when they need support, when they don't need support, and vice versa. I think it's a special relationship to be able to have a close colleague who's a friend. You end up spending time outside of work, exploring museums together, galleries together, and that, I think, also informed what we were interested in bringing to this.

IC: In 2022, I was finishing grad school. I had left my job, and Lindsay had also left hers. We took a trip to visit my family in Croatia. We would be returning to the city really not knowing what we were doing — Are we freelancing? Are we applying for jobs? Lindsay had continued this idea — We should just do something, we should open a gallery. I was like, Yeah, when we get back, let's do that, but let's just enjoy this vacation. Sure enough, when we got back, she said, Why don't we just do something in my apartment hallway, there's a beautiful skylight. It's a small space, I pay rent there already, we don't have to go find something. My first reaction was, Let's call it staircase. My next reaction was, Well, let's talk to your landlord. I would say, that's how we are as collaborators — Lindsay is the visionary, I'm more, you could say, a maker, however you want to define those. Lindsay’s also very much a maker. But I'm more into the practicalities of asking, How do we bring this down just a notch actually to get it out into the world? The time and circumstances were right for us — we were in this between-space of having a little more space to take the time, because I think that's what was preventing us in the past — where are we going to find the time? Eventually, it was just — there's never going to be a right time.

LA: We were looking at some spaces, but the rent was too high. Then one day, I was walking into my apartment, up the stairs, and I said — You know, what if we just do it here. The walls are big, the space is big. There's a platform. Let me talk to my landlord, who's my good friend's mom. Ivana was like, Yeah, that sounds great, a little wild. But OK, I’m down for Lindsay's wild ideas all the time. So we set to work. We ripped up the carpet, we painted the walls, we installed electricity so we could put in track lighting. So it has this gallery aesthetic, and it's a place for exploration. We want the artists to be free and not feel pressured to sell work but to experiment within the space. I think because it's adjacent to a home, there's a level of comfort and intimacy there. There’s privacy for the artists to be able to explore and expand on some ideas that they may or may not feel comfortable doing in a white box, true gallery kind of setting.

IC: We spent that fall taking time to paint the staircase, paint the door. We put the pieces together to have an opening in January of 2023. It's been over a year now since we opened our blue door.

‘sew your echo’ exhibition / Artist Isabella Manfredi

ER: Tell me about how you two choose the artists you want to be working with, what that looks like for you.

IC: So, there are some constraints to the space. All the exhibitions have been unique, we’ve shown various mediums. I think we surprised ourselves with what we were able to accomplish in this space. I also think what emerged for us was the importance of being women co founded, of wanting to show more women artists, nonbinary artists, in such a historically male dominated industry.

That felt important, and something that we wanted to be designing for. We also wanted to work with artists who would be interested in collaborations. I think about the network effect a lot. We’ve been doing solo shows, though we’d be open to a group show; it just happened to be right to be able to give the artists that solo time. Group shows could bring in more visitors because each artist has friends that want to come, or their networks that they blast out to. It’s nice that the artists have been open to being paired with writers for exhibition statements; even though our space is small, there are other ways we can work with other creatives. That led to — who’s the graphic designer, who’s working with us there. We’re proud of our website and documentation of the shows. Paperbeatsscissors is the designer, and Jenna [Garrett] took the photos; they gave a lot of their time and energy. The artists have the photos to use to get their work more out in the world. The website or Instagram is the first place for people who haven't visited before. That’s really important — those are places where our strong point of view comes through.

‘DRAWINGS’ exhibition / Artist Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

IC: There is something very unique to the staircase itself. The artists responding to the architecture, the way that people react to it — there are more ways to show artwork than I think, initially, one would imagine. It’s also a sort of social experiment: people typically walk up the stairs, and they look forward, and then on their way back, they see whatever they see on the way down — it’s that out-and-back sort of trail. You might miss something if you don't turn around, but you have to, to exit. I think from an experience design standpoint, it's pretty interesting. Having the skylight — there's not a square foot or a piece of this staircase that we haven't thought about utilizing. The space became bigger than we initially thought when we imagined a gallery in a stairwell.

ER: I'm fascinated by the possibilities for an art space that is right there in conjunction with living spaces. It feels like there are two sides to it. I'm curious how you see that it impacts the way people perceive the art, and I'm also curious how you think about it, now that you live in the context of this space — you created it, and you live in it.

LA: It's a running joke with my family, that I want to live in a museum, so we kind of made that happen in a way. I find myself getting emotionally invested in the work, specifically the exhibition with Barbara Stauffacher Solomon. Her passing during the run of the exhibition was emotional for me. I had worked with her on previous projects, so I had a long standing relationship with her. It hits you — and then living with the work afterward was like a memorial that I got to interact with daily. She had a self-portrait in the show. Just seeing it, it is like, Barbara is present with us. For me — this is why I work in the arts, I want to have this work live on and impact people.

LA: How people perceive the space, coming in, being so close — I think there is surprise, a shock, when people walk in. They're like, Whoa, this is not what I expected. And then also their curiosity, where people want more, so they feel inclined to open one of the doors and then they say, Oh, this is it? I have to explain, I live here, and then they say, Whoa, that's so cool.

LA: I like the size and the scale of it. I like that it's solo shows, because we really get to highlight that person and their work. Group shows are great. I like them, too, but I feel like this is an opportunity for people to showcase themselves, in this spot, in this smaller, intimate, less intimidating kind of space.

ER: I would imagine you're choosing to work with artists whose work you enjoy, or are intrigued by in some capacity. Thinking about you living right there — I'm curious if there's ever been any artwork you've installed that maybe surprised you every time you saw it. I'm curious to hear the range of how it feels to be living with all the different kinds of artworks.

‘some gamut’ exhibition / Artist Laura Figa

LA: Some shows have a quietude to them. I’m thinking specifically of the first show, with Laura Figa, and the fourth exhibition, with Léonie Guyer. Their work is very meditative and cerebral. There's a quietness to it, a reflection, and so that for me — having an opening with Laura’s show was lovely. Because it was also right when I was starting my new job, so it was an intense time, but coming in every day, there was this calming effect.

LA: Our first sound piece and video piece was with tuğçe evirgen özmen. She composed the sound and video. We initially had a subwoofer in the space. But it was too loud. The whole staircase was rattling. This was during install. We're like, Okay, we'll just have these speakers, but also have a built-in subwoofer, but tuğçe wanted the volume at, like, 54 when she was here. Sometimes Ivana and I will shut the door to work from the kitchen because you can hear when the door opens and people come in, but there would be sounds in there. Like when it gets to this ominous spot. It's like —[DUH DUHM]— and you're like, Oh! So that one was shocking.

LA: It made us think more about how the space can be so varied. There's so much possibility for the artists to do whatever they want. When we pick the artists — everyone that has shown here, we've known, we have a personal relationship with. We did that specifically for the first year because it is such an experimental space, and it's also my home. So, it had to be someone that Ivana and I both trusted. Because we said, here's the space, this is the budget that we have, you have the flexibility to do what you want. tuğçe took that to the next level — we blacked out the lights, we had the sound, we borrowed a 4K projector, and we were able to showcase the work in a very professional manner. I think people were impressed by that — you walk into darkness, you ascend the stairs, you see this light, and then you hear all of the sound.

Installation shot of ‘mirror remembers’ exhibition / Artist tuğçe evirgen özmen

‘mirror remembers’ exhibition / Artist tuğçe evirgen özmen

ER: I read Rita Bullwinkel’s essay about Léonie Guyer’s work and I find it so interesting to hear the history of the building, and to think about the people who have moved through the spaces. It feels so different for a gallery type of space. Buildings have histories, so even a white box gallery space has some kind of history, but this is a building with a very personal kind of history. I’m curious how you think about that.

LA: Rita is a dear friend, and her essay moves me so much — she's the third generation to live in this space, and her daughter was born here, so it’s going into the fourth generation — I feel lucky and also honored to be a part of this space. I'm doing this with my best friend, having her here. So the artists that we pick are part of that — like Léonie, for example, is an artist who is beloved to all three of us collectively.

LA: Léonie came to Laura’s show and said, I feel this urge to do a wall painting. We said, Okay, yes, let's do that. I felt like, It needs to live here forever. So the spirit of staircase and your presence will live here forever — kind of like the history of the Jay DeFeo work living behind the wall at SFAI. I had just finished reading Rip Tales, that Jordan Stein had written about Jay DeFeo, and — I feel like the history of this building being so personal to a dear friend, and having the work live on as this ghost, is just something that I felt was important, that we needed to do. It’s the same now with Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s stairs, with her passing — we're going to keep the stairs her vermilion color, and then that will be a permanent art piece, and the same with Léonie’s painting up at the top. If we move on from this space, maybe they paint over it, maybe they don't. But the idea of its skin, that layer still being there, is something that was important to us.

Wall painting by Artist Léonie Guyer / ‘conclave’ exhibition

Vermilion staircase at Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s exhibition ‘DRAWINGS’ / photo by Eva Rogers

ER: There are a lot of experiences of art where we're in a kind of sanitized environment, or a very controlled environment — and then there is the experience of seeing an artist’s studio, which — you’re right there, in the place where the art emerged. I’m interested in how staircase feels like a bit of an in-between space.

LA: It absolutely is, especially when we think about rel robinson’s show [rel lives in the apartment next to Lindsay’s — her studio is also in her home]. It flowed with rel like — Now we're going to showcase it here in this quote-unquote gallery space that's right outside your house. It was also a bonus because — you live so close to this exhibition space, you're able to come out and test things. Or again with Léonie, I gave her the keys because Ivana and I had to go to work. She just spent days in the space to figure out where the piece was going to go, just sitting here, seeing where the light would fall. The space lends itself to being a gallery-slash-studio space.

ER: I'm thinking of the idea of the door separating the studio and the gallery. Now I'm in the gallery space, now I'm in a private studio space. It's interesting to think about how in a lot of ways, and maybe in a lot of places, there's this desire for more and more space — where people think things happen in larger spaces. This is a small and focused space, it's an intimate space. That feels tied to what it means for artists to come in and find their connection with the space.

LA: It's layered. It feels a little bit like a residency — residencies that have you present something at the end or maybe a project comes to fruition. Because it's like, here are the keys, here you go, this space is yours. We're here as a resource to bounce ideas off of, obviously; we help financially, and physically with the install, but try to have the idea fully come from the artists to give them that freedom. We really want it to be an experimental place for these artists to dream up whatever they want.

‘My Roman Empire’ exhibition / Artist rel robinson

ER: You’ve noted that staircase is not a full time project for either of you. And I would imagine that gives you some flexibility in terms of how you work. I’m curious if there are interplays with other galleries in the Bay Area. It’s interesting to me that you’ve formed what feels like more of a flexible creative space within the gallery construct or concept. I’m curious how that plays out for you in communication or in circles with other galleries.

IC: It was super cool — when we opened, at the same time, In Concert and House of Seiko opened in San Francisco, and then a little bit later, Personal Space opened in Vallejo. It felt supportive to know that other people were also opening new things, that there was a market and interest for that. I believe it to be true that it's this idea of testing, you don't need to have an original idea — people out there doing the same thing are validating that it is of interest, right? And so — those spaces opening up at that time as well — they're doing something, we're doing something.

ER: It feels like this underlying goal of making sure that the arts can continue to thrive in a place like San Francisco and the Bay Area.

IC: I think that was very much felt at the San Francisco Art Fair, where it was our booth on the corner, Personal Space next to us, and then House of Seiko next to them. We’re like, this is the block party, this is the most fun in this whole big space in Fort Mason. I hope that spirit continues.

LA: I liked the idea of being this nontraditional space. I felt like — this is the future.

‘conclave’ exhibition / Artist Léonie Guyer

ER: It feels like it comes back around to a hunger for what people are creating, and want to be creating, together. Rather than just like — here's our job and what our job says we're supposed to be making. Actually, we want to make things together.

LA: I went to school for art and gave up my path of being a photographer to be an arts administrator, but I view staircase as an art project. For me, personally speaking, it's been really great to have this creative outlet. Aside from my job.

ER: Can you say more about how you think about curating and how you think about the nature of staircase being a thing you're making?

LA: I studied art history and then photography, and I thought that I was going to be a photographer. That was my life goal. But then it was like, Oh, I need to make money. So then I fell into arts administration, and started to love that. Then I was in development. But that didn't feel right, for me.

LA: But I loved SECA, because I got to meet all of these artists and do these deep dive studio visits, and then have these deep conversations about the art practice. I thought, Okay, this resonates with me, I want to explore this more. I also fell into exhibition design. I have a

hard time saying curator because I didn't get a PhD in art history — I organize shows.

LA: I feel like it's that personal time that happens a lot in the studio with the artists when we're looking at work, and then having conversations like, What are you reading now? What are you listening to? I observe how the artists are moving in the space or how they're hanging their work in their own personal space. Then I think about that when they come to staircase and we're having a walk-through. When we're talking about layout and ideas, I try to bring in some of those personal elements that I experienced when I was in their personal space. That's my own approach to how I think about, specifically, hanging shows — but it's very much a conversation. For me, curating and producing these shows is very intuitive. Of course, we'll hash out an idea. But you can come up with an idea of how you want to show the layout, but until you're physically in the space, seeing it — that's where all the magic happens, everything is going to move around.

Photos by Jenna Garrett jenna-garrett.com

Find Eva at @rogevarog / evarogers.com

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