With the artwork market having contracted considerably over the previous 12 months, it feels extra prone to hear a few gallery closure than an growth. However when Michael Werner Gallery opens its first exhibition with Sanya Kantarovsky later this week, it is going to be in not one Higher East Facet venue however two.
The brand new area took place by a little bit of a fluke. Werner has occupied a jewel field on the second ground of 4 East 77th Road since 2000. (It’s a jewel field with a historical past, as the unique New York gallery of legendary supplier Leo Castelli, who opened it in 1957 in what was then Castelli’s lounge.) When the constructing was lately put up on the market, Werner gallery companion Gordon VeneKlasen, who runs the operation, fearful {that a} new proprietor may not need them and began to search for a brand new area.
He briefly thought of Tribeca, however the Germany-based Michael Werner—who’s in his mid-80s and remains to be lively within the gallery—was insistent on sustaining a presence on the Higher East Facet. And VeneKlasen had his personal considerations a few huge area downtown.
“At this second, the grandeur of every thing is so disproportionate to the truth of the state of affairs, and this can be a very uncommon second in so many various methods,” he mentioned, referring not simply to the artwork world and market, but additionally the broader cultural and political setting. Simply as necessary, huge quarters in Tribeca simply didn’t match the gallery’s id, he defined. (The gallery additionally operates areas in London, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Athens, Greece.) “Our id may be very a lot a part of why the artists come to us,” he mentioned, “and the areas are a part of that id.”
When Werner initially opened on the Higher East aspect, in 1990, the neighborhood was dominated by Outdated Masters sellers, so it was not the plain alternative for a recent supplier—most of the galleries’ colleagues have been in SoHo. As these galleries decamped to Chelsea, after which to Tribeca, Werner has stayed put.
Fortunately, VeneKlasen discovered an area obtainable proper across the nook, at 1018 Madison Avenue, which additionally homes galleries Grey and Alexander Berggruen, and pounced on it. When the brand new homeowners of 4 East 77th allayed his authentic considerations by saying they’d love for the gallery to remain, he realized that having two areas a three-minute stroll from each other wasn’t a nasty thought, and Kantarovsky jumped on the probability to inaugurate it (and his illustration by the gallery) with a two-part exhibition.
For the build-out, the gallery reunited with Annabelle Selldorf, who lately oversaw the Frick Assortment’s renovation and growth. Now the decide of galleries all around the world, Selldorf did her first gallery undertaking with Werner in 1989, when she’d simply left Richard Gluckman’s agency to exit on her personal.
The Kantarovsky present, entitled “Scarecrow” and encompassing work, drawings, ceramics, and a brand-new group of monotypes, opens on Might 7.
