The Tollbooth Gallery was a site-specific exhibition space and project of the nonprofit arts organization ArtRod launched in 2003 and located in Tacoma, Washington.[1] The project featured contemporary art on view 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The aim of the Tollbooth was to offer dynamic and challenging installation and video art in an outdoor urban setting.[2] [1] [3] Tollbooth Gallery was created and curated by Jared Pappas-Kelley and Michael Lent.[4]
For each exhibition an artist or artist team was commissioned and tasked with the realization of their project at the site, while taking advantage of the freestanding concrete structure.[1] [5] Art critic Regina Hackett characterized the project as “mind-expanding art packed into cramped quarters” and described the approach as: “Art that is eager to wrestle with reality.”[6] Hackett noted: “What it lacks in space, it achieves in time,” and “on top of that, it's fabulous.”[7]
The Tollbooth commissioned eight exhibitions per year, focusing on varied approaches and engagement with the site and viewer, with an emphasis on video art, time-based work, photography, printmaking, and installation art.[1] [8] The gallery’s stated mission was to bring video and gallery work outside of the traditional museum setting, challenging artists and audience to approach site in different ways.[1] Participant and curator Fionn Meade described the Tollbooth site as a “challenging space to work with but in a good way,” commenting that “the limitations of a format make you be more decisive.”[8] This decisive approach to exhibiting contemporary art allowed the Tollbooth Gallery to program work that might be considered “edgier,”[9] which was furthered by the temporary nature of the commissions.[9] As the journal Public Art Review noted, the project benefited from the “dynamics” of its temporary exhibitions as they allowed for experimentation and “delivered on a short timeline.”[9] [10] Over the years the Tollbooth Gallery was selected by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles to be included as part of their curriculum,[11] presented as part of the panel Conduit to Contemporary Art at Americans for the Arts National Conference,[12] and Make Your Own: Art in and out of Cologne at Henry Art Gallery.[13] A catalogue of the first year of exhibitions at Tollbooth Gallery was subsequently published as Toby Room 10.[8]
The Tollbooth Gallery was one of four major projects of the art organization ArtRod, which included Critical Line - an exhibition center, the publication Toby Room, and the film and video series Don’t Bite the Pavement.[14]