In an art world that can seem opaque and ladened with Byzantine rules, Bill Powers does things his way and it works. I spoke with the owner of taste-making Half Gallery about his journey in the art world, how he has successfully grown his business, and how emerging artists can position themselves for success.
STEVEN ZEVITAS:
In speaking with artists and those who make their life in the art world over the years, it has become clear to me that childhood exposure to the arts is often pivotal in determining the direction their lives took. So let’s start there… Tell me about your earliest memories of art.
BILL POWERS:
My earliest memory of encountering art would probably be going to the King Tut exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in grade school. And at the same time, my parents had a Robert Indiana Love poster in our hallway (which became kind of ironic after they got divorced). I mentioned the poster in an essay I wrote a couple of years ago about Christopher Wool. It was my first encounter with art that had a text element in it, and I later connected it in my thinking to Christopher Wool’s text paintings. It made me realize that the difference in reading text, as opposed to, say, looking at a narrative, figure-based painting, is that text operates at our interior speed. There’s no set speed for how you read text—it’s the speed of your inner voice. It’s fascinating that when you think back on art you saw in childhood you can see how it comes back to you and resonates in different ways.
Were any members of your family
