Modernism On The Move Again, 37 Years Later

When Martin Muller arrived from Geneva by way of Little Rock, Ark., to open a San Francisco art gallery in 1979, he was too new to know not to put it upstairs in a lighting warehouse South of Market. Modernism, as he called it, turned out to be the first commercial art gallery in SoMa. [...] Modernismis pushing the frontier again, having come to rest wedged between an SRO hotel and an auto body shop on Ellis Street. “I find it personally exciting as someone in the world of culture, to be a pioneer in a neighborhood where I feel I can have a meaningful contribution,” says Muller, who laces his formal English with a French accent. When asked the precise name of this neighborhood, he is unashamed to summon his gallery director, Danielle Beaulieu, to tell him where he is sitting. Pioneer though he is, Muller is not the first art dealer to stake a claim on the raggedy side of Ellis. Jessica Silverman opened her gallery in a vacant corner store at Ellis and Leavenworth three years ago and “it’s been fantastic,” she says. The door is locked, and if you press your nose against the glass you can see an oversized painting of a young girl holding an assault rifle. Anyone enticed enough to find out can press the buzzer for admittance through a heavy metal door. Bohemian clubbers and nightclubbers stood shoulder to shoulder to see Gottfried Helnwein’s paintings of children smeared in blood, wrapped in bandages and pointing automatic weapons at them. During gallery hours on a sunny day, the north side of Ellis is a good place for people to warm in the southern exposure, often while laying down on the pavement. “Martin is an intensely intellectual guy and is always interested in showing art of its time,” says art historian Barnaby Conrad III, who has known Muller for 35 years. The commotion that bothered him the most was a rent increase he describes in his typically overheated way as “dramatic and exorbitant, to the tune of doubling.” In response, he sent his broker to follow the art gallery wagon train south to Dogpatch and the Do Re Mi (Dogpatch, Potrero, Mission) Arts District.