You never know what you’ll see when you show up at Ron Cooper‘s garage.
One week, it might be the vintage cars that he leased the space to house.
And another week, it might be art related to his award-winning line of Mezcal.
Cooper, a multidisciplinary artist, recently found that he had more space than he knew what to do with. And with a nudge from his pal Larry Bell, he decided that he may as well see what it’s like to run his own pop-up gallery space.
“I had a 5,000 square foot space with about 30 cars in it. I really couldn’t get any of them out except the front one by the door,” Cooper says. “I finally found another place where the cars are accessible, but I had a lease for another three years. Larry Bell saw the space and said to me, ‘Why don’t you do something?’ And I said, ‘Like what?’ So he said, ‘Like an art exhibit.’”
Two weeks later, Cooper says, they were dipping their toes into curation.
And now, they’re having a great time considering what might come next.
The first pop-up show at Cooper’s Garage, held in February, displayed glass cubes made by Bell alongside prints from Cooper’s mezcal project. Cooper won a James Beard in 2016 for his creation of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal. A third friend of the artists, clockmaker Johnny MacArthur, showed a Renaissance-era regulator clock that had recently been sold.
The second pop-up, held in March, was dubbed Cars & Guitars, and Cooper displayed some of his vintage automobiles while Bell exhibited 12-string guitars from his private collection. Cooper said the response has been great; they had 200 visitors on the Saturday that Cars & Guitars was exhibited and then another 160 visitors the next day.
For April’s pop-up, held on Saturday, April 13, and Sunday, April 14, from noon to 5 p.m., it will be another eclectic affair. Bell will exhibit his 2002 artwork, Time Machine, made from rare barium crown glass and furniture from local craftsmen.
Cooper will display textiles that he has woven and collected over the years, some of which were purchased in Oaxaca, Mexico. And another friend, Gus Foster, will show photographs from a recent collection. Cooper says he’d love to keep the pop-ups going every month for as long as he holds the lease in the sprawling garage, and he says that if somebody else picks up the lease, he’ll look for a smaller space to turn into a more permanent gallery.
As for why he settled in Taos?
Cooper, who grew up in Southern California and spent a lot of time in Oaxaca, says he prefers living and working in a small town.
“The light here and the space here is incredible,” he says. “Those are the prerequisites for me.”
