The bell tolls frequently these days for New York galleries of all sizes, suggesting that something in our art ecosystem is seriously broken. (Josh Kline has a diagnosis for that, as you may have heard.) Amid yet another wave of gallery closures, there is much to mourn. But there is also a ray of hope in the form of nonprofits that have sprung up across New York in the past few years, organizing shows that commercial galleries will not—and perhaps cannot—stage.
Perhaps more so than other major art hubs in the US and Europe, New York has a rich tradition of alternative spaces that dates to the 1970s, which saw the formation of gritty organizations like the Kitchen, Artists Space, and White Columns, all of which continue to be vital to the city’s ecosystem. Each still runs against the grain in its own way, albeit with much more money than it had half a century ago.
These organizations all started out scruffy. Most of the new ones today, however, come out of the gate spiffed-up and well-capitalized—for example, the Wang Contemporary, a new Chinatown space launched in February by the designer Alexander Wang and his mother Ying. (Its inaugural presentation was for MSCHF, the collective whose viral creations are regularly shown by Perrotin, one of the world’s biggest galleries.) Seemingly as a riposte to these sleek spaces, artists have struck out on their own, forming their own alternatives with a rougher edge. The painter Lucy Bull, for one, briefly revived her East Village gallery last year.
Below is a look at what’s currently on view in four New York nonprofits, all of which are a 15-minute walk from one another. One is brand-new, and one is newish; a third is closing soon after a brief run, and the fourth has been around for decades and looks to remain that way.
