The Last Picture Show: The Ellen Curlee Gallery hosts its final exhibition — and it's a doozy

Ultimately, Curlee's Washington Avenue address, a seemingly ideal location, yielded precious little foot traffic. The rent was high, and with the exception of the Philip Slein Gallery across the street, there were few other nearby arts venues to create a critical mass for gallerygoers.

Obviously, it's a significant loss. That gallery was a lot less conservative than a lot of commercial galleries," White Flag Projects director Matt Strauss says of Curlee's gallery. "But there is no gallery in St. Louis that I would not be surprised to see fold tomorrow: It's all that precarious, it's all that fragile and it's all based on an individual's desire to continue to eat it [economically]. I'm very sorry to see it go, and I hope it finds some other life somewhere else, somehow else."

In fact, Curlee is already planning a new venture. Rather than another commercial gallery, though, Curlee envisions something of a salon.

"I'm not going to limit myself to photography anymore," says Curlee, who is in negotiations for another space on Washington Avenue. "My goal is to do some small, edgy projects. I will have room for a little gallery, and I might do installations for the entire space."

She wants her reincarnation, titled Ellen Curlee Projects, to feature video art, an expanded inventory and possibly a sitting room with a library. She's also thinking about collaborating with other galleries.

"I want it to evolve naturally. I don't want to build too fast, because I want to promote my artists so that their art can be shown [in galleries] out of the city," says Curlee, who intends to hold her first event in October. "I'll be streamlined, bare-bones and free to do interesting and fun things. I want to play more.

"Because this space," she says, indicating her gallery, "is kind of serious and stuffy. But art should be about playfulness and experimentation. I want to create a place where those kind of things can just happen, and I'm not so worried about the bottom line."