Northern Exposure

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 1| September 29 - October 5, 2006

Gallery

Photo by Geoff Smith

Last Exit: Since its move from Soho in 2003, Exit Art has filled a much-needed niche on the periphery of Chelsea, far from the cluster of commercial galleries. Above, co-founder Jeanette Ingberman inside the gallery.

Northern Exposure

Years after Exit Art’s move, a look at how pioneering galleries are faring

By Susan Yung

To observe Chelsea’s gallery terrain growing and sprawling like a giant canvas is to see the market behave at its best and worst. Markets, that is, since this overwhelming growth (more than 300 galleries and counting) is the product of two separate, yet inextricable commodities — art and real estate. Suddenly, a tour of must-see shows in Chelsea now includes many galleries west of Eleventh Avenue, and as far north as 36th Street. How did these galleries get here? And more importantly, how are they faring?

The first gallery to pioneer the move north was Exit Art, which moved from Soho to north Chelsea — technically Hell’s Kitchen — nearly three and a half years ago. Known for mounting large themed surveys including emerging artists working in all media, this non-profit, run by Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo, has staked out breathtaking spaces in not-yet-mainstream neighborhoods before.

“People don’t remember... when we moved to Soho in 1984, it’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t anything like it is today, or ten years ago. Nobody was there. We were on Broadway between Prince and Houston, and I remember someone saying to me, ‘Oh, you’re on the OTHER side of Broadway,’” Ingberman says with a laugh. But an arts district soon sprang up, and in describing the atmosphere in Soho then, she explains, “There was much more of a connection between the commercial galleries, the alternative spaces, the theater and dance groups, the political organizations, even the museums... We just kind of related... It was different. At Exit Art, every month someone would call asking if they could have a meeting protesting the war in Nicaragua, or abortion rights.”

But when Soho morphed into a shopping district, Exit Art sought another neighborhood on the verge. “This space had been dark and boarded up for a long time, so when we moved in and opened it up, it became a kind of anchor in the neighborhood. They were starting to build 37 Arts (a theater center founded by Baryshnikov) down the street, and one thing we did early on was to have an evening where we invited any arts or cultural organization in the neighborhood — in film, or visual arts, or theater — and we were amazed at how many people showed up and didn’t know each other.” Comparing the foot traffic at Tenth Avenue to Soho, Ingberman notes, “It’s not yet at what the heyday of Soho was, but it’s certainly as good as what Soho was toward the end” of Exit Art’s time there.

“And one of the things that’s very rewarding is that people will come here and spend a couple of hours or more looking at the show. I think that makes a big difference. They’re here, they’re looking at everything, they’re reading everything... they’re really interested.”

Today, Ingberman and Colo are channeling their formidable collective energy toward creating “a cultural space for the 21st century,” renovating their basement space to form two theaters scheduled to open in January 2007. “The film theater will basically be digitally-produced cinema... And the performance space will be theater and music. The idea is that you’ll come and have a drink for 20 minutes, and see a half-hour film. It’ll be a whole evening downstairs — we want to create a nighttime destination.”

At times, Ingberman still sounds like an artworld rebel of the 80s, yet she is clear about the big picture. “The difference between the richer and poorer galleries, or the bigger and smaller, is more noticeable and huge [in Chelsea]. In Soho, the bigger galleries — the ones who had more money — didn’t look so radically different than the other galleries. They were bigger, but they still had a roughness, a rawness about them. And here, you can just tell who has the money.” But she adds that the Gagosians of Chelsea just make more room for places like Exit Art. “If everybody were the same, we wouldn’t have a reason to exist,” Ingberman says. “So in a way, it helps us define ourselves even more” — and in a sense, it creates more of a need for alternative spaces like hers, which exhibit artwork on the basis of its merits, without regard to its sales potential.

A bit farther south and west sits a hulking fortress, the Terminal Storage building, which has begun to respond to the art market’s insatiable need for ground floor storefront space. Black & White, the lone gallery on the Terminal building’s desolate, northern 28th Street side, is a recent expansion of the Williamsburg gallery owned by Tatyana Okshteyn. Their current exhibition, Julian Montague’s “Stray Shopping Cart Identification System,” is both Dada-absurd and intentionally, outrageously slick.

“The space is beautiful and showcases art better than our other location,” said Okshteyn, discussing her new gallery’s pros and cons. “Major collectors come to see the shows [now], the ones who never make it to Brooklyn.” And because “it’s more compelling for artists to have their shows in Chelsea than in Brooklyn,” says Okshteyn, “the Chelsea location allows me to attract more established artists.” But the downside, she says, is that Chelsea’s financial pressures make it “quite risky to exhibit cutting edge installation work that may not sell.”

By contrast, the south side of the Terminal building on 27th Street is a veritable souk of new galleries, in part because a number of dealers are clustered together in separate storefronts. Galleries like Schroeder Romero, which moved from Williamsburg, are helping to form a new critical mass that teases art fans over moat-like Eleventh Avenue. For owners Lisa Schroeder and Sara Jo Romero, there’s a litany of advantages to being in Chelsea’s wild west, including greater visibility and increased foot traffic. But on the flip side, says Schroeder, “The competition is much more fierce, it is not easy to get to from public transportation, [there’s] increased crime, and we miss the camaraderie we had with other galleries in Brooklyn. Of course, it is extremely expensive on top of it all.”

Edward Winkleman of Winkleman/Plus Ultra, which also relocated from Williamsburg to 27th Street, also cites the much stronger foot traffic and higher costs of Chelsea. At the same time, he casts a gimlet eye toward the future. “There are whispers already of galleries being priced out of Chelsea and many folks are keeping an ear to the ground for where a new center might appear. The Lower East Side is attracting great spaces, and there are a few galleries in the Lower West Village, but nothing yet that looks like it will become a clear magnet should Chelsea rents force out those spaces that didn’t buy their buildings. Having just relocated, I’m hoping things will stay stable for a while, but I know of Chelsea spaces that are approaching the end of their ten-year leases and looking for cheaper locations.”

Cynthia Broan Gallery migrated north in search of cheap rent, moving from 14th Street to 29th Street west of Tenth Avenue, near two well-established art dealers: Sean Kelly, and a new branch of the Peter Blum Gallery. From its vinyl mesh-shod façade to its sliding internal walls, Broan’s space stands out for its innovative design by LOT-EK.

“The space was a 24-hour taxi garage until the day I took the lease, and my landlord still operates out of the garage next door. I didn’t want to convert the space into another vanilla box-style gallery space... Turning a crappy garage building into something sterile and semiprecious would have felt insincere to me. Flexibility and mobility are important concepts in LOT-EK design, and the gallery can be configured to create exhibition spaces of various sizes.”

Broan feels there are advantages to being on the outskirts of Chelsea proper. “I always liked having a peripheral location; it gives gallery-goers a little breather between shows. It’s not healthy to experience 20 exhibitions or more in the course of an hour. That’s similar to not chewing your food. On the periphery, we tend to have viewers who take their time with the show, and less so-called “strollers” or “zoomers,” who consume shows without digesting. When they leave our space, they can think about what they’ve seen for almost a whole minute before walking into the next place. That minute is crucial for mental processing and memory banking.”

Chelsea’s northern and westernmost galleries are doing just what pioneers have always done — taming the frontier for the rest. Now is the time to savor their daring, before the sands shift again.