For hundreds, hell, thousands of years, artists have longed to transform society by way of art. That dream has become a reality, but as they say, be careful what you wish for. In New York, art has transformed Soho, the East Village, Chelsea and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The question is, will The New Museum of Contemporary Art currently being built on the Bowery, trash the area’s rowdy, unconventional character by turning the Lower East Side into another sterile Chelsea? If history is a reliable gauge, the answer is probably yes.
“We left Soho,” says Chelsea Scott, the museum’s press liaison, “because we ran out of space.” The new building will have a total of 60,000 square feet and house multiple galleries, classrooms, a gift shop, café and a rooftop terrace. The board approved $65 million for the construction and an endowment, that equals roughly $1 million per square foot, (and you thought your apartment was expensive?). Although the project is not “green”—it was conceived before the carbon craze—each gallery does feature a skylight, thanks to the ingenious stacked box design created by the Tokyo firm Sejima & Nishizawa/SANAA.
The gleaming structure sits between short, shabby tenements, restaurant supply shops and, increasingly, new hotels and million-dollar condos. But Scott insists, the mission of the museum complements the community: The New Museum is New York’ s only institution devoted entirely to contemporary art, with a focus on emerging and under-represented artists.
Still, the move has not been free from controversy. There are those who feel that real estate developers have learned to exploit artists who help revitalize run-down areas and are than displaced by pricey rents and elitist attitudes. “We’re not a luxury condo,” Scott insists. And she describes the museum’s impressive anti-elite resume. Started as a non-profit in 1977 by the late curator, Marcia Tucker, the museum has hosted groundbreaking shows like Bad Painting (1978), which turned the art world onto kitsch, and Fashion Moda (1980), which helped launch the graffiti and East Village era. Over the years they’ve championed alternative groups and movements such as gender and identity, deconstruction and, more recently, computer and technology-based art through their Rhizome.org site. And last year they began awarding four emerging artists, not represented by galleries or widely shown, the Altoids Prize of $25,000 each.
The New Museum has a good track record and most galleries in the neighborhood welcome their arrival—but not all. The Orchard Street Gallery closed their doors on April 15 when the building went condo and the landlord (after a nasty battle) had them evicted. “It was cool in the beginning,” says Ali Ha, the gallerie’s co-founder. “We can’t take credit for creating the scene.” But, she says, “We definitely created our own scene. We helped street art to be looked at as art and not vandalism.” Ha and partner Adam DeVille are angered by the area’s mainstreaming and see the New Museum as just another part of the process that’s wiping out LES’s raw authenticity. They hope to move to Bushwick (to start the cycle again?).
Daniel Giove of Prudential Real Estate agrees that New York’s artists are paving the way and then getting run over. But he says, “Put yourself in the landlord’s shoes. If you owned a low-rent building and could finally cash out, wouldn’t you?”
“The Lower East Side is still pretty gritty,” says painter Anthony Zito. He lost his LES gallery/studio to rising costs last fall. “What Chelsea and the LES share,” says Zito, “is the pace of development.” Yet, he explains, “I think the two are diametrically opposed.” Zito sees Chelsea as cold and trendy. “People are just plain nicer here—maybe because less money is changing hands than in Chelsea,” says Zito. “When a ‘Chelsea-style’ gallery popped up a few years ago, they seemed to stick out like a sore thumb.” He too sees the New Museum as part of the art establishment, but grudgingly recognizes that things change, and he notes that the Gallery Bar on Orchard recently sold a painting for $26,000. Zito is having a solo exhibition there May 24 featuring his own new style.
Jimi Dams knows the traits of the two communities well as the owner of the two Envoy Galleries; the first in Chelsea, and the second, opened this past January, at 131 Chrystie Street. Though he moved from Soho to Chelsea before the rush, Dams has grown tired of the isolated art ghetto atmosphere. “Chelsea’s not good for art,” says Dams. He’s happy to see the New Museum going up, but he admits rents are now going up too. In fact, a fellow Chelsea gallery owner chose Madison Ave. when he recently relocated, because of LES’s higher costs. Still, Dams prefers the LES’s youthful, good-time spirit, as do his artists and collectors. The New Museum, he believes, will simply add legitimacy to the area’s growing art scene without destroying the historical ambiance.
Over at Invisible NYC, newly minted owners, Troy Denning and Jesse Lee Denning, are excited by the area’s transformation. “I think it’s the only way to bring more people into the neighborhood” says Troy. They exhibit cutting-edge neo-graffiti, and he explains, “I just want to get art out to as many people as possible.”
Gallery 128’s long-time dealer Kazuko Miyamoto is also pleased to see former Chelsea galleries moving in to the LES. “It’s nice to have more art,” says Miyamoto. “It’s more intellectual than hanging out in bars.”
Over the centuries, the Lower East Side has housed a lot of newcomers, and each new group probably faced resentment from old timers. When asked if they thought the New Museum would harm the LES and Bowery communities, the museum’s architects answered that the Bowery has long been “accepting and embracing every oddity … this street is a place where every imaginable future seems possible, and that makes it a particularly beautiful site for the New Museum.” So perhaps in the end the question of trashed or surpassed is simply in the eye of the leaseholder.
