There was wine in plastic cups and people milling around, but the similarity to any other art gallery opening ended there.
This
was the painter Austin Eddy’s one-bedroom walk-up apartment in
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on a Sunday afternoon. The entry to the multiple
occupancy townhouse was redolent with cat litter. The centerpiece of the
show was in his bedroom closet.
The work was Ryan Johnson’s “Life Study,”
a colorful sculpture made of aluminum, medical casting tape and other
materials. It was not for sale. The opening was merely an opportunity to
help Mr. Johnson, an artist between gallery shows, get his latest work
in front of an audience, and for Mr. Eddy to do some networking.
Since
the 2008 economic downturn, temporary do-it-yourself art galleries have
proliferated in apartments, storefronts and other spaces all over the
country. Call it a response to an art world in which dealer
representation is increasingly hard to come by; exhibitions are costly;
and formerly affordable areas like Bushwick have priced out artists,
forcing them to seek out scrappier locations in which to show their
work.
But
these self-starting galleries also signify a growing effort by artists —
both emerging and established — to find community in an increasingly
stratified art world and to wrest control of their careers from the
curators and dealers who determine which works are seen. They are taking
matters into their own hands by promoting and connecting with one
another.
“Artists
are the tastemakers now,” said Emily Weiner, 34, who, with her fellow
painter Sharona Eliassaf, 35, periodically mounts an exhibition series
called the Willows in her Brooklyn Heights apartment (on Willow Street). “We don’t wait for galleries to pick us up.”
These
home galleries are generally not moneymaking ventures. While a few
might take a cut of the sales, most aim to just show the work and create
ferment among artists and potential buyers. They bypass the commercial
gallery system and its chic white-box formality.
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“It’s
tough to be an artist in New York City,” said Carole Server, a
collector who attended Mr. Eddy’s show. “Studio space is incredibly
expensive and difficult to find, and you face a lot of rejection. How
many artists get some recognition?”
Given
a high-powered, high-priced art market, in which it can be impossible
to break in, “the opportunities come as much from your colleagues,” Ms.
Weiner said. In 2013, she featured the artist Sam Adams in a Willows
show. Mr. Adams suggested to the artist Jay Davis that he look at Ms.
Weiner’s paintings. Then, last February, Mr. Davis included Ms. Weiner’s
work in a group show that he curated in the space between the Ace Hotel’s lobby and the John Dory Oyster Bar in the Flatiron district.
“A
decade ago, collectors would buy works straight out of your graduate
school studio and there was a feeling of cutthroat competitiveness,” Ms.
Weiner said. “It doesn’t help to be competitive right now.”
Most
of these alternative galleries are open by appointment only and
publicize their events through Instagram, Facebook and other social
media. As a result, visiting these spaces can take effort. In an email
to prospective attendees, Mr. Eddy explained that openings at his place,
called Eddysroom,
“are semi private events, so please refrain from passing out the address
and phone number, but feel free to bring a plus one” — and to “call or
text if you are having trouble finding the spot.”
Indeed,
those involved in this gallery scene say the trouble it takes to see
shows at odd times in out-of-the-way spaces are a testament to the
hunger for art experiences that feel human and intimate. “People travel
to the neighborhood, find parking, come to my front gate, call the
number because there’s no buzzer,” said Paul Soto, a writer who runs Park View gallery
out of his home in the MacArthur Park section of Los Angeles. “For me
to come down and have this interaction with them — it’s really
personal.”
Several
of the artists featured in these unorthodox shows are already
established professionals, like Mr. Johnson, for example, who had a solo
show at Sikkema Jenkins & Co in New York in 2010 and has been
featured in group exhibitions at Marlborough Chelsea and the Sculpture
Center.
“The
big thing is just having a show, no matter where it is,” Mr. Johnson
said. “There isn’t always an opportunity to show someplace, so you just
make your own opportunity.”
Once a novelty, artist-run spaces now abound. The artist David Prince runs Adjunct Positions out of his garage in the Highland Park section of Los Angeles. Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam, married artists, operate the Suburban gallery in two outbuildings in the yard of their home in the Oak Park neighborhood in Chicago.
Many,
not surprisingly, can be found in Brooklyn, including Mountain, which
the artist Michael Fleming started this year in his Bushwick apartment,
and Violet’s Cafe, which three artists started in 2013 in a former factory in Carroll Gardens.
Sarah
Meyohas, an artist who recently received an M.F.A. from Yale, runs a
gallery in the apartment she grew up in on the Upper East Side. “When we
were in school, we had critiques,” she said. “I thought, ‘How can we
have something that’s sort of like the next step?’ This is the way I
could engage in a really direct way with other people’s work. It’s made
me a better artist.”
Some of these galleries aim to redress what many perceive as a market that favors artists who are white and male.
“In
some ways, I was interested in doing it because I was angry about what I
was seeing around me,” said Violet Dennison, 27, one of the artists who
started Violet’s Cafe, which is currently on hiatus. “All the artists
that were showing were men. I felt like I had nowhere to be; there was
nothing that represented me.”
To be sure, sometimes showing art in your home can be inconvenient.
“The
downside of it was having a lot of people in my apartment,” said Katie
Geha, 36, a writer and art historian, who until recently ran a gallery
in her Austin, Tex., apartment. “But the upside was that I really did
become part of an art community.”
Sometimes visitors showed up at odd hours.
“People would knock on my door,” Ms. Geha said. “And then I’d answer in my pajamas.”
Ms.
Geha went so far as to accommodate an artist in residence: Jeff
DeGolier, who constructed a large installation in her living room out of
trash he found around Austin during his week sleeping on Ms. Geha’s
lime green sofa.
“Living with that piece was extremely difficult,” she said.
Like Ms. Geha — now director of the Dodd Galleries
at the University of Georgia in Athens — these entrepreneurial
gallerists occasionally go on to bigger and better things. Alex
Gartenfeld, who was an artist when he started the West Street gallery in
his West Village apartment with Matt Moravec, is now the deputy
director and chief curator of the Institute for Contemporary Art in
Miami, and Mr. Moravec runs the Off Vendome gallery in Chelsea.
Some
galleries that started below the radar have gradually earned greater
attention from curators and critics, like Pierogi, Reena Spaulings and
Regina Rex, all on the Lower East Side.
Still,
artists say most galleries that operate on the margins these days are
not meant to be steppingstones to the mainstream. They have become an
important way for a greater number of artists to have influence and to
make their own art world.
“We’re
doing it because we want to hang out with other artists,” said Ms.
Weiner of the Willows. “Artists are the ones who are creating the buzz.”
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