On a Saturday afternoon in late November, a queue of gallerists, artists and artwork fans stretched alongside twenty third Avenue, wanting to enter Manhattan’s famed Lodge Chelsea. The historic landmark was as soon as house to the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe, Bettina Grossman and Leonard Cohen, however this was not the rationale for the queue. The lodge was internet hosting the inaugural Chelsea Artwork Truthful—a free, public artwork truthful held for sooner or later solely (23 November). In contrast to most artwork festivals, it solely featured 5 galleries (all of them based mostly in New York and Los Angeles): 56 Henry, Citadel, Lomex, Matthew Brown and Ramiken.
The Chelsea Artwork Truthful was considerably of an experiment in various fashions for exhibiting and promoting artwork, and the appropriate components gave the impression to be at play: galleries arguably defining a “downtown cool” contemporary-art scene with formidable programmes and artist rosters, a lodge with a storied previous stuffed with artwork and artists, all with the backing of Platform—the net artwork gross sales web site owned by David Zwirner.
On the first version of the truthful (and the primary artwork truthful organised by Platform since its launch in 2021), the group thrummed with anticipation—greater than 3,000 attendees appeared genuinely curious to take a look at whether or not it could stay as much as the hype.
“We’re excited for Lodge Chelsea to re-establish its historical past of involvement with the humanities,” Sean MacPherson, a co-owner of the lodge, tells The Artwork Newspaper.
“The standard of everybody’s sales space is tremendous excessive. Context is every part,” says Matthew Brown, founding father of the eponymous gallery.
“Should you’re an individual strolling in off the road,” says Harley Wertheimer, founding father of Citadel in Los Angeles, “I believe you get a pleasant context of what youthful galleries are enthusiastic about proper now.”
Contained in the inaugural Chelsea Artwork Truthful Picture: Tim Toli, courtesy the Chelsea Artwork Truthful
However was it successful? That may depend upon whom you ask.
The gallerists appeared excited in regards to the new format.
“It’s good to have the ability to be part of one thing that feels genuine [and] present alongside gallerists I love,” Brown says. “Despite the fact that it’s a small truthful, there’s really various vary.”
Mike Egan, the director of Ramiken in New York, mentioned: “Extra individuals have come by immediately than a complete 12 months on the gallery. Despite the fact that we’re solely quarter-hour away from [Ramiken].”
The Chelsea Artwork Truthful is much from the primary to happen at a New York lodge. The Gramercy Worldwide Artwork Truthful—based in 1994 by the gallerists Pat Hearn, Colin de Land, Matthew Marks and Paul Morris on the Gramercy Park Lodge—was so successful that it recurred and reworked, finally turning into The Armory Present. It was organised with a radicalised philosophy to upend the normal truthful mannequin and on a shoestring finances, with artists like Karen Kilimnik staging “interventions” of crimson paint dripping down the lavatory partitions and Mark Dion serving lemonade. Elizabeth Peyton’s legendary 1993 present organised by Gavin Brown on the Lodge Chelsea additionally involves thoughts (Uri Aran’s 2006 video at Matthew Brown’s stand on the Chelsea Artwork Truthful was from the artist’s first present, additionally at Gavin Brown).
When it comes to “experimental” worth, although, some thought the Chelsea Artwork Truthful fell quick—if that was even a objective of the organisers. One customer mentioned that regardless of the venue, it was “nothing out of the strange. It nonetheless had the texture of a traditional truthful.”
One other customer supplied constructive criticism: “It will be cool in the event that they used precise lodge rooms for every gallery to point out work, particularly given the historical past of the lodge.” (Richard Thayer, Platform’s chief working officer, mentioned that in gentle of the truthful’s small measurement, it didn’t make sense to unfold out over completely different rooms.)
Contained in the inaugural Chelsea Artwork Truthful Picture: Tim Toli, courtesy the Chelsea Artwork Truthful
Just a few guests commented on the shortage of area. Packed crowds made it exhausting to see the precise artwork. “It was claustrophobic,” one attendee mentioned. “I didn’t really feel like individuals may actually take pleasure in it like an artwork truthful that has extra space and several other rooms. There was no movement.”
However from a enterprise perspective, the truthful supplied its taking part galleries an opportunity to do one thing new and completely different, with considerably much less monetary danger than a typical business truthful.
Wertheimer says that the format was a comparatively “approachable” strategy to take part in what was really Citadel’s first-ever artwork truthful. For a comparatively new gallery, artwork festivals usually are not all the time financially viable. “I wish to be cautious about prices at my stage of the gallery,” Wertheimer says. “This was a very particular format to have an invite the place the prices aren’t loaded onto the gallery.” Fortunately, he added, his stand bought out.
In the meantime, Platform—in the same strategy to its on-line gross sales mannequin—took a proportion of gross sales as a fee on the truthful, slightly than charging exhibitors up entrance to take part.
“It is approach too costly,” Egan says of the price of exhibitor charges at main artwork festivals. “It is hell on the youthful galleries.”
“The camaraderie of being packed in right here with the opposite galleries is basically particular,” Wertheimer says.
Egan felt equally about his fellow exhibitors: “They’re all excited about artwork as an avant-garde thought, and never simply pumping the ‘flower portray’ market.”
