Name: Lisa Sette
Age: 56
Hails From: Hamden, Connecticut
Presides Over: Lisa Sette Gallery, 4142 North Marshall Way, Scottsdale, Arizona
Gallery’s Specialty: Contemporary art
Artists Shown: Enrique Chagoya, Binh Danh, Angela Ellsworth, Luis González Palma, Siri Devi Khandavilli, Fiona Pardington, Doug and Mike Starn, Julianne Swartz, Jennifer Trask, James Turrell, and others
First Gallery Show: Holly Roberts in 1985
Tell us about your first experiences with art.
It was black-and-white photography that first drew me to visual art. Several images that were seared into my mind early on were James Van Der Zee’s Couple Wearing Raccoon Coats with a Cadillac, 1932; Diane Arbus’s Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967; and a self-portrait by Paul Outerbridge. I remember them from a junior high school photography class. Photography taught me how to see and that art could be simultaneously beautiful, threatening, and precarious.
What prompted you to enter the trade?
I was one of seven roommates in a large house while at Arizona State University, where I was a photography major. None of us had any furniture, and the spacious and funky living room was empty. I thought it would be nice to showcase the work of my fellow art students there. That’s how it started.
How did you decide to open a gallery?
I knew I was a terrible artist and that opening a gallery was a way to remain close to art. In 1985 I opened my first gallery in Tempe, which is a college town with very little interest in art. A year later we moved to Scottsdale, where we have been for nearly 30 years. This summer we are moving to an Al Beadle-designed modernist building in midtown Phoenix.
Describe your local market and what you find interesting about it.
Arizona has a small but serious contemporary collector base, and there are more who have winter homes here. We also enjoy a very supportive local clientele. But I don’t really follow trends. I gravitate toward art that reflects a considered reaction to its context, no matter the medium. For example, Angela Ellsworth, who comes from a prominent Mormon family, creates these seductive “Seer Bonnets” out of pearl-tipped corsage pins. The exterior is pristine and shiny and alluring but the sharp pins stick through the hat form, which make for quite an uncomfortable wear. Her great-great-grandfather had nine plural wives, and the series deals with family history in a culture that is still active in the present day.
What have you found to be the greatest rewards and greatest challenges in running a gallery?
The greatest challenge for most art galleries is money. I’ve intuitively balanced finances and the excitement of exhibiting works that I love. Relationships with artists and clients are my most meaningful reward.
Which fairs do you find the most enjoyable?
Those in which I am not asked, “Did you make all of this?” At AIPAD Photography Show in New York, no one asks that.
What has been your strangest or funniest experience in the art world?
In the late 1980s, I visited James Turrell to collaborate on a project. I had brought my young family, and we planned to camp in the bowl of the Roden Crater—the site of his naked-eye observatory. It was summer and it was rainy. As we began setting up our tents in the afternoon, we noticed bolts of lightning not far from us in the Painted Desert. Turrell gently explained the lightning-attracting nature of the iron-rich crater and suggested we move camp to another location. It was a surreal experience.
If you could own any artwork, price no object, what would it be?
I admit to having a Franz Xaver Messerschmidt obsession, as well as a Countess de Castiglione fascination. Both are so uncannily contemporary. So a lead bust by Messerschmidt or a collection of photographs of the countess.
If you were not an art dealer, what would you be doing?
I can’t not be an art dealer! It is how I interact with and understand the world. There’s still so much to learn and share through the gallery; my work is not done yet.
A version of this article appears in the April 2014 issue of Art+Auction magazine.
