NEW SAN DIEGO GALLERY BUCKS TIDE OF CLOSINGS

Flying in the face of a spate of closings, a contemporary art gallery opened its first exhibition Saturday in spaces once occupied by a gallery that folded this year.

“It’s silly for me to play it real safe,” said owner-director Dietrich Jenny, a painter and former rock musician. Jenny said he will stick with his “ideals and instincts” and show little-known, serious artists rather than exhibit more popular works.

In recent months the Quint, Patty Aande and Natalie Bush galleries, all noted for their stables of emerging and established contemporary artists, closed due to slow sales.

Jenny plans to present works by emerging artists from San Diego and other cities in the new Dietrich Jenny Gallery, located in the former Quint Gallery at 664 9th Ave.

In his first exhibition, a two-man show, Jenny gives a hint of the diverse artists he intends to represent.

“I’m big on artists that haven’t had a lot of attention and have been passed over for one reason or another,” he said. The exhibit consists of the low-key abstract paintings by San Diegan Steve Ilott and the mostly unpainted cardboard sculptures by New Yorker Kenneth Johnston.

“I wanted a show that would have turned heads in the most demanding cities in the country,” Jenny said. “I wanted San Diegans to have a show they haven’t seen before, the kind that’s seen in a hip gallery in Los Angeles or Zurich or New York.”

Comments by visitors opening night ran the gamut, said Jill D’Angelo, Jenny’s assistant.

“Some said it was like a breath of fresh air,” she said. Others said the artists “haven’t spent much on materials,” and one suggested that if Johnston spray-painted his sculptures, “no one would know they were cardboard.”

Jenny said he had no sales at the opening, but he hadn’t expected any.

“Mark (Quint) made few sales at openings,” he said. “If we could . . . break even we would feel pretty heroic.

“I really don’t like to shake a finger at the city,” he said, referring to San Diego’s reputation for having few art collectors. “I think San Diego already is a reasonably hip city. I don’t know whether we’re ready to take the responsibility for it. How unhip could a city stay with this kind of population growth?”