A brand new arts establishment with a give attention to video artwork, sound artwork, and efficiency artwork is ready to open on Manhattan’s Decrease East Facet in 2026. Referred to as Canyon, the 40,000-square-foot venue will occupy a long-vacant industrial house on the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge.
The venture is the brainchild of philanthropist and artwork collector Robert Rosenkranz and Joe Thompson, the founding director of MASS MoCA. In response to its organizers, Canyon is being designed for works meant to be skilled over time quite than glimpsed in passing.
Thompson, who will function director, stated the aim is to make staying with the work really feel pure and satisfying. “People are wired to present ourselves over to issues that take time—live shows, leisurely dinners with buddies, films—within the night,” he stated in an e-mail to ARTnews. “If we’re inviting individuals to spend time at Canyon, let’s make it actually snug, with galleries extra akin to dwelling rooms than stark white bins, with a spot to place your drink.”
The structure agency New Associates has been tapped to revamp the venue, which can embrace 18,000 sq. ft of exhibition house and a 60-foot-tall space for performances and gatherings. A devoted 300-seat efficiency corridor will host live shows, screenings, lectures, and podcast tapings.
Exhibitions will rotate thrice per yr, and early plans embrace a retrospective of Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda and an expanded iteration of “Worldbuilding,” a bunch exhibition about video video games and up to date artwork that was organized by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Obrist described Canyon as “not only a new establishment—it’s a brand new time zone for artwork.” He added that it’s going to provide “a much-needed house for period, immersion, and reflection,” and famous that “Worldbuilding” will profit from the venue’s assist for experimentation and its emphasis on collective, time-based expertise. The present first debuted in 2022 on the Julia Stoschek Assortment, one other establishment with an emphasis on video artwork.
Canyon additionally goals to fulfill artists on their very own phrases. “Video has develop into a dominant mode of communication,” stated Sam Ozer, founding father of the Mexico-based competition TONO and Canyon’s newly appointed curator-at-large. “Artists working with efficiency, sound, and shifting photos are experimenting with new types of transmission and gathering. Canyon is designed to assist the complexity of those works and reimagine how audiences can expertise them.”
Along with its immersive programming, the venue will home long-term companions together with Digital Arts Intermix, Rhizome, and the ARChive of Up to date Music, every of which can contribute to Canyon’s programming.
The house will cost most people $30 for admission—the identical quantity because the Museum of Trendy Artwork, one of the crucial costly artwork establishments within the nation—however entry will likely be free for varsity teams and library cardholders. The initiative is being launched by way of what Rosenkranz calls “enterprise philanthropy.” His basis is masking the $10 million build-out and can assist fund the estimated $10 million annual working finances.
