Lower East Side Gallery Update Update

By Charles Kessler

First the bad news:
Jane Kim/Thrust Projects is closed and supposedly looking for a new space.

Several alternative spaces may be closed, or at least not currently keeping regular hours:

• Asia Song Society, 45 Canal Street. Their website proclaims: “PROUD TO SHOW ONLY ASIA ARTISTS” but no mention of any present of future shows.
• 179 Canal, 179 Canal Street. Their website also has no upcoming exhibitions listed. I emailed them a query about their future plans but haven't heard anything yet.
• Art Since the Summer of '69, 195 Christie Street, #303, is currently closed according to their website. 
• Forever and Today, 141 Division Street, is closed while they prepare future projects. Their website says they "will be featured in several off-site exhibitions and programs during this time" and they will re-open in November. They're one of my favorites, so let's hope for the best.

Now the good news:

• Frosch and Portmann, 53 Stanton (west of Eldridge where Smith-Stewart, Scaramouche and Luxe galleries used to be), seems potentially a very good gallery -- in any case they have a strong group show up now. Eva Frosch was a fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and was the Gallery Director at Jack the Pelican in Williamsburg, so I expect good things from them. On the downside, Amy Smith-Stewart told me that one of the reason she closed was because of the crime in the area. I hope that doesn't deter them. 
• Next door, also 53 Stanton, is the new DACIA gallery. They are: "proud to be affiliated with the following arts organizations: Contaminate [a VERY slow site] and the European House of Arts."  I'm not sure exactly what that means for the gallery, but there it is. They also said they'll be offering art classes there soon. I must say they were very enthusiastic and eager to show me around, but there's something a bit amateurish about them and, sorry to say, the work they showed. (My friend Tom jokingly says for galleries there's an inverse correlation between friendliness and financial success. He unfortunately may have a point here.) 

The Friendly "Art on a Whim Gallery,"  Breckenridge, Colorado

• The new Rooster Gallery, 190 Orchard Street (just south of Houston) was also closed, but their neighbors said they have been open occasionally. They will officially open October 21st with an exhibition entitled "Geography of Affection: Six Portugese Artists in New York."
• Another new gallery to the LES is the Krause Gallery, 149 Orchard Street (just above Rivington). They will be closed September 30 - October 3 to attend the Affordable Art Fair, and the group show up now was pretty much thrown together, so it's going to be some time before I can really get a take on the gallery. 
• I finally got to see James Fuentes's (55 Delancey at Eldridge) new, unpretentious space with few distractions, good light and pleasing proportions -- and in a much better location than his former Chinatown space.  Bard graduate Fuentes used to be Director of Deitch Projects and is a bright guy -- this gallery should be a major addition to the LES gallery scene.

One thing really surprised me: one would expect a new gallery to open with their very best work, especially in the Fall, but none of them, including Sperone Westwater, did. And what's with all the group shows anyway? Don't they know the summer is over? Even many of the more established LES galleries don't seem to be putting out their best efforts. Canada, as usual, has a good group show, but they didn't even curate it themselves. What gives? 

Some Links

10 minute VIDEO on 40 Years of New York Times Op-Ed Illustrations

BARRY BLITT, Iraq Is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac, The New York Times, April 22, 2007

Jerry Saltz Answers Your Questions on Elitism, Careerism, and Cronyism -- Vulture: "The point is that no one rails at physics or science or medicine for being “elitist.” Like physics, medicine, etc., art is a specialist field — something you understand more the more you study it. Unlike these other fields, however, someone can really teach themselves to be an expert in art, just by looking, going to shows, seeing everything possible, and really thinking about it."

Paul Krugman:
The Power of Conventional Wisdom - NYTimes.com: "This is what you need to know: important people have no special monopoly on wisdom; and in times like these, when the usual rules of economics don’t apply, they’re often deeply foolish, because the power of conventional wisdom prevents them from talking sense about a deeply unconventional situation."

And, I just discovered Matthew Collings. Here are selections from some of his better posts:

Kenneth Noland, lotus, 1962

PUT DOWNS AND SUCK UPS: MATTHEW COLLINGS' WEEKLY VENTINGS ON THE ART WORLD: NO 43: REMEMBERING KEN NOLAND: "Noland's simplicity is actually difficult and complex, he concentrates much into little, and he achieves a beautiful, light, resonant, vibrating effect that transcends mere design or mere colour-matching or mere scale. Pure abstract values, pure musicality, take us to somewhere philosophical and important. This is a difficult proposal for art-worlders today. We want importance to be immediate and spelled-out, and to a degree pre-digested. We have been conditioned to believe greatness in art always has some kind of moralising component. We often don't actually want to be too much involved in art as such but in a sort of buzzing chat about the hot contemporary moment in which 'art' vaguely figures. We want the social reassurance of art, rather than its higher values, whereas Noland - whose work is a living testament to his sensitivity and passion - was much tougher and harder on himself."

PUT DOWNS AND SUCK UPS: MATTHEW COLLINGS' WEEKLY VENTINGS ABOUT THE ART WORLD: NO 36: POP LIFE: "When Warhol dubbed his studio a factory it was a provocation, it implied mass production, a pragmatic approach, contempt for preciousness -- which is great if you're making a point against snobbery, but depressing if higher values really are the target. The problem with the Warhol legacy is that no one can tell the difference."

PUT DOWNS AND SUCK UPS: MATTHEW COLLINGS' WEEKLY VENTINGS ON THE ART WORLD No 4: Happy Birthday Clement Greenberg: "But when you do get used to Greenberg's sober tone you are constantly struck not by how dated but by how timeless he is. He insists abstract values are present in both abstract and figurative art, and the art of the past as much as the present. He is good at summing up both impurity and purity. He saw Surrealist painting as an example of the former. He says such painting is really an art of 'vicarious wish fulfilment' -- 'The artist shows us how he would prefer life to look or how -- as children do -- he would prefer to be frightened.' In his description of the limitations of Surrealist painting (all pseudo-meaning, and no visual richness as such) you feel you might be hearing about the limitations of the painting of our own time: 'The Surrealist image provides painting with new anecdotes to illustrate, just as current events supply new topics to the political cartoonist, but of itself it does not charge painting with a new subject matter. On the contrary it has promoted the rehabilitation of academic art under a new literary disguise.'"

Lower East Side Gallery Update

New Galleries:

Madison Ave? Chelsea? Los Angeles? London?

It's the new Sperone Westwater Gallery, 257 Bowery between Stanton and Houston, in the LOWER EAST SIDE!  I'm not sure if it should count as a LES gallery - it's awfully slick. And it's not even that functional because, except for the top floor, the spaces are relatively narrow and distractingly busy. I bet there's actually less usable space here than in their old space. 


Here's their famous elevator/gallery with a guard -- a guard, for God's sake -- being a good sport about getting his picture taken:

Work by Guillermo Kuitca on the walls

Both the Dodge and Hendershot galleries have basements. Hendershot's is clean, relatively high, but clearly a basement. Dodge opened the back of their first floor so the space doesn't feel like a basement (see below), and it will also allow them to install very tall work -- but it makes the space kind of busy and makes it difficult to focus on the work.

DODGEgallery, 15 Rivington (west of Chrystie) 

Hendershot Gallery, 195 Christie, just South of Stanton.

James Fuentes Gallery, 55 Delancy (and Eldridge) wasn't open when I went by, but they should be open now. I peeked in and it looked like a modest but well-proportioned space.

Untitled Gallery (Ugh -- horrible name. It used to be the Rental Gallery) 30 Orchard Street, just south of Hester. They're not all that friendly either -- fortunately atypical for a LES gallery.

Salon 94 opens an additional space on October 7th at 243 Bowery, near the New Museum.

Other Changes:
Moved: Scaramouche moved to 52 Orchard, a comfortable space between Grand and Hester.
Name Changes: Dispatch to Bureau, La Viola Bank to Allegra LaViola, Rental to Untitled (see above)
Closed: BLT, FiFi Projects, Heist Gallery.
Sort of closed: envoy enterprises, but it's now a non-profit called NP Contemporary Arts Center, and it's run by Jimi Dams, former owner of envoy enterprises. 

I still need to check out  several other galleries, and when I'm fairly sure the list is complete, I'll re-do the sidebar gallery guide.

Many thanks to Anne Doran and the gallery Feature Inc. who have continued to be very generous in helping me update LES gallery activity.

Does Great Music Inspire Great Art?

Andy Warhol pictured circa 1965 with the Velvet Underground, Nico (in white)
and Gerard Malanga (second from the left).
Photograph, Steve Schapiro/Corbis

Band of art brothers: does great music inspire great art? | Art and design | guardian.co.uk: "From Pollock to Warhol, and now Jeremy Deller, artists have had a creative connection to music. But does great music imply great art (and vice versa)?"

More on Max's Kansas City

ARTINFO: 11 Hopped-Up Art World Anecdotes from the "Max's Kansas City" Book: "Steven Watson writes in one essay that 'deciding who came in was owner Mickey Ruskin's way of 'curating' people.' The pieces of photographic ephemera and scribbled memories, only some of which are collected in this book, amount to the late Ruskin's grand exhibition. In honor of this achievement, ARTINFO perused Kasher's book to cull 11 things you didn't know about Max's. And boy, are they Grade-A juicy."

Brandeis to hire new Rose Museum director - The Boston Globe

Brandeis to hire new Rose Museum director - The Boston Globe: "“If their intent is to have a real museum as opposed to a college art center, why did they get rid of all the people who worked there in the first place, and why did they let this museum run into the ground for a year and a half?’’ said Meryl Rose, a museum donor and longtime member of the museum board of overseers."

Video From the Art Fag City Blog

Failing By Faction: How Diverse Are Internet Communities?: "For those who have about an hour to kill, the Dave Hickey lecture is worth a gander both for his ideas on the development of art viewing, and his thoughts on the Internet."

Exhibition websites three ways: Bradford, Miro, LACMA | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes | ARTINFO.com

Exhibition websites three ways: Bradford, Miro, LACMA | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes | ARTINFO.com: "We’re 20 years into the mainstreaming of the world wide web and there’s still no museum-wide consensus on what an exhibition website should look like."

Museum funding cuts: a danger to democracy | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

Museum funding cuts: a danger to democracy | Art and design | guardian.co.uk: "What will disappear is the generous theatre of public life that museums are so brilliant at creating. That would not only be a loss to the arts and sciences but to the very quality of our society."

Jerry Saltz on Dan Colen's Misguided 'Poetry' -- New York Magazine

Jerry Saltz on Dan Colen's Misguided 'Poetry' -- New York Magazine: "The problem is not so much with Colen himself, who is just a willing pawn in a dead-end game. It’s his kind of faulty thinking, and the brassy, vacuous spectacles staged at Gagosian and elsewhere, that are poisonous. Once upon a time in the nineties, art that wanted to be complicit with the system, that tried to lure collectors as it criticized the artist-dealer-buyer complex, had an edgy Trojan-horse coerciveness. A lot of people got rich creating a gigantic industry of artists, dealers, and curators who’d do almost anything for the limelight. By now, Colen’s high/low art—paintings made of cheesy materials; kicked-over tricked-out motorcycles; those skateboard ramps—is not only lazy thinking. It is old-fashioned art about old-fashioned ideas about commodity-art-about-art that no one cares about anymore. At this point, continuing to follow in the footsteps of Warhol, Richard Prince, Takashi Murakami, and Jeff Koons appears derivative, completely mechanical, and possibly corrupt. Colen fetishizes a moment that no longer exists, and behaves like nothing’s changed. People seem scared to say a lot of this art is bad; it’s as if they fear being uninvited, cast out from the circle of social light."