Winner Best Art Gallery 2024
Words by BRIENNE WALSH
Photography by JACOB EDENFIELD // Courtesy LANEY CONTEMPORARY
ANYONE WHO’S BEEN TO LANEY CONTEMPORARY can attest that it’s an oasis. Housed in the Lee J. Meyer building — a two-story brutalist gem that looks like a modernized Aztec temple on the west side of the city — the gallery is surrounded by a wooded glen that recalls the pastoral glamor of the Storm King Art Center in New York. On opening nights, gallery owner Susan Laney hires a food truck and makes sure that everyone, including kids, know that they are welcome to see the art, hang out in the bar room (which is mirrored from floor to ceiling) or just run around outside among the trees. “It makes me happy to know that people have a good experience here,” Laney says. “We really want to encourage people to come at any time.”
Laney originally founded the gallery in 2017 to spotlight local artists who aren’t necessarily known in the wider art world. It has since become a popular gathering place for the city’s creative class, which includes many working artists and writers, as well as professors and students at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Serving the artists on her roster — who include Katherine Sandoz, Betsy Cain, Marcus Kenny and Will Penny — as a collaborator and support system is at the forefront of Laney’s mission. “The artists we work with are what make the gallery,” she says. “You have to trust your artists and believe in them because some things they make just come up like miracles.”
Every exhibition brings a fresh set of ideas and challenges for Laney and her team. Whenever someone new walks in the door, especially if it’s their first time coming to an art gallery, Laney gets excited. “I want to create an accessible environment reflective of our creative and open Savannah community,” she says.
This year brought a fresh crop of exhibitions, including “Emotion,” a group exhibition in October featuring the work of seven women artists curated by two other women — Jiha Moon, an artist represented by Laney, and Veronica Kessenich, the former executive director of Atlanta Contemporary. It also marks the first time Laney Contemporary will have a booth at UNTITLED Art Fair, a curated event that takes place during Art Basel Miami Beach in December. Laney also hopes to improve her online art resources so collectors around the world can access her inventory. Through all these efforts, Laney hopes that her artists become just as well known in New York, Los Angeles and Miami as they are in Savannah.
It’s really the local community that keeps Laney motivated, however. One of her favorite moments from the past summer involved hosting a group of high school art students participating in the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, who came all the way from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. “We were their only stop!” Laney says with delight. “We had such a nice time.” The program could have chosen from myriad historic sites in Savannah; instead, like so many other people, they chose Laney Contemporary. An oasis.
Brienne Walsh is a New Yorker who moved to Savannah four years ago with her family — and never wants to move again. A writer, photographer and art critic who has contributed to The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Interview, Art in America and Real Simple, among many other publications, Brienne currently teaches a class on art criticism at Savannah College of Art and Design.
