Words: Melody Parra

Guillermo Ramirez and Victoria Vinamaragui are young artists trying to give other artists like themselves a place to show artwork. These recent college graduates are the driving force behind the Gun Gallery, also known as La Galleria de Las Pistoles in Juarez, Mexico.

Fish-eye view of the Gun Gallery

The El Paso-Juarez area has become a ghost town for art galleries. Every year, the list of names of closed galleries grows steadily longer.

“[Art galleries] disappear, the saddest thing is that not many people notice or are actually concerned about it,” Vinamaragui said.

This lack of available gallery space for emerging talent is what drove Ramirez and Vinamaragui to open the Gun Gallery.

“It was the basic need of having a space that we could call our own,” Ramirez said in an online interview.

Luckily, Vinamaragui had a relative who owned a rental property that was available in Juarez. Both Ramirez and Vinamaragui want the gallery to maintain itself as a gallery space for those artists in need of a space in which to exhibit.

The gallery has been open since October 2008 and the gallery has exhibitions planned for the rest of the year.

The Gun Gallery's mission is to provide exhibit space for young artists.

The openness that these artists have, is found in their art and in the artwork they display in their gallery. Ramirez and Vinamaragui both have a ‘multi-disciplinary approach’ in their artwork. They each work in a variety of mediums, varying from traditional media like drawing and painting to digital media such as video and audio installations.

 Both artists admit to being new to running a gallery. Vinamaragui said that being an artist and knowing what its like to have need for a space is what makes the Gun Gallery a reality. 

“We manage the place the way we, as artists, would like to be treated in a gallery,” Vinamaragui said.

The Gun Gallery has already sown deep roots in the local art scene. Next month the gallery will open DesCerco: Desde Lomas de Poleo (Unfences: From Lomas de Poleo), an exhibition organized by Leon de la Rosa from the Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez (UACJ) and partnered with Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for Visual Arts.

Ramirez said working with seasoned artists is the factor that has helped the gallery the most.

For more information visit:

http://thegungallery.wordpress.com/

www.myspace.com/thegungallery

All images provided by The Gun Gallery