Once the exclusive home of meatpackers and manufacturing, Fulton Market now draws art aficionados to its cluster of galleries. Owner Mark Rowland opened his gallery space in the neighborhood, believing in its potential while embracing its bustling culture of industry.

With an appropriate nod to the ‘hood, Rowland opened its doors in September 2005 with “Cold Cuts,” a group show of six emerging, mid-career artists (New Yorkers outnumbering Chicagoans five to one). The gallery presents itself as an alternative, commercially run space with established talent that balances the draw of the New York artist with an occasional local representative. Chicago-based artist John Arndt held a solo show that sparingly took over the front and back rooms. An audio track enveloped the room with vibrations of disassembled piano strings, which were sculpted into a ball and placed among water color gouache “drawings” and musical instruments suspended in geometrically poured concrete.

Rowland built the space with the foresight of flexibility: A 500-pound sliding wall serves as a partition or additional wall space for group or large installation shows. Though he met all of the artists he represents through the interconnected art world, he still combs through the five to 10 submissions he receives weekly. Expect the intermittent edgier show like “Death Sex War,” which depicted human figures reduced to numbers.

Centerstage Reviewer: Maria Raynes