By Kat Carney
The Dia Center for the Arts has disappeared from Chelsea, but a new arts initiative has taken its place, albeit temporarily. Housed in the building Dia once occupied, the not-for-profit organization X, which opened its doors on Mar. 7, features exhibitions, site-specific installations, performances and lectures focusing on contemporary art, in particular on artists who have been under-represented in Chelsea’s traditional commercial galleries. “There are 400 galleries that do the same job,” says curatorial director Cecilia Alemani, “so we really want to open it up to a different group of artists that really don’t get any exposure in New York.”
X, which has a one-year rent-free residency in the building while the property’s management decides its long-term plans for the space, is organized into four phases by season. The current Spring phase features an installation by multimedia artist Mika Tajima called “The Extras,” a survey of work by the late British video artist Derek Jarman, which includes 18 films rarely available in the United States and “Light Chamber (Part 2),” a rooftop installation by Christian Holstad described as “part bunker and part high-end spa,” which incorporates a colonic machine and a tanning bed. In a nod to the building’s previous occupants, X also has on view for the duration of its programming a loan from the Dia Art Foundation: the site-specific light work “untitled” by Dan Flavin, installed in the buildings’ stairwells.
While Alemani hasn’t finalized the Summer phase of the initiative, she described her vision as including more ephemeral, perhaps performance-based, work. “These are more traditional exhibitions,” she says of the Spring phase. “What we want to do for the Summer is turn the space upside down and do the exact opposite.” Alemani’s plan to open up the space with a looser, more dynamic show for Summer is driven not just by aesthetics, but by function, too: the building has no air conditioning.
