On a Saturday afternoon in late November, a queue of gallerists, artists and artwork lovers stretched alongside twenty third Avenue, desirous to enter Manhattan’s famed Lodge Chelsea. The historic landmark was as soon as residence to the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe, Bettina Grossman and Leonard Cohen, however this was not the explanation for the queue. The lodge was internet hosting the inaugural Chelsea Artwork Truthful—a free, public artwork honest held for sooner or later solely (23 November). Not like most artwork festivals, it solely featured 5 galleries (all of them based mostly in New York and Los Angeles): 56 Henry, Fort, Lomex, Matthew Brown and Ramiken.
The Chelsea Artwork Truthful was considerably of an experiment in various fashions for exhibiting and promoting artwork, and the fitting parts seemed to be at play: galleries arguably defining a “downtown cool” contemporary-art scene with bold programmes and artist rosters, a lodge with a storied previous full of artwork and artists, all with the backing of Platform—the net artwork gross sales website owned by David Zwirner.
On the first version of the honest (and the primary artwork honest organised by Platform since its launch in 2021), the gang thrummed with anticipation—greater than 3,000 attendees appeared genuinely curious to take a look at whether or not it will 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 all the things,” says Matthew Brown, founding father of the eponymous gallery.
“When you’re an individual strolling in off the road,” says Harley Wertheimer, founding father of Fort in Los Angeles, “I feel you get a pleasant context of what youthful galleries are enthusiastic about proper now.”
Contained in the inaugural Chelsea Artwork Truthful Photograph: Tim Toli, courtesy the Chelsea Artwork Truthful
However was it successful? That may depend upon whom you ask.
The gallerists appeared excited concerning the new format.
“It’s good to have the ability to be part of one thing that feels genuine [and] present alongside gallerists I like,” Brown says. “Though it’s a small honest, there’s really various vary.”
Mike Egan, the director of Ramiken in New York, stated: “Extra individuals have come by at this time than a complete 12 months on the gallery. Though 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, ultimately turning into The Armory Present. It was organised with a radicalised philosophy to upend the normal honest mannequin and on a shoestring finances, with artists like Karen Kilimnik staging “interventions” of pink 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 brief—if that was even a objective of the organisers. One customer stated that regardless of the venue, it was “nothing out of the unusual. It nonetheless had the texture of a traditional honest.”
One other customer supplied constructive criticism: “It will be cool in the event that they used precise lodge rooms for every gallery to indicate work, particularly given the historical past of the lodge.” (Richard Thayer, Platform’s chief working officer, stated that in gentle of the honest’s small dimension, it didn’t make sense to unfold out over totally different rooms.)
Contained in the inaugural Chelsea Artwork Truthful Photograph: Tim Toli, courtesy the Chelsea Artwork Truthful
Just a few guests commented on the dearth of area. Packed crowds made it laborious to see the precise artwork. “It was claustrophobic,” one attendee stated. “I didn’t really feel like individuals may actually take pleasure in it like an artwork honest that has more room and a number of other rooms. There was no circulate.”
However from a enterprise perspective, the honest offered its collaborating galleries an opportunity to do one thing new and totally different, with considerably much less monetary danger than a typical industrial honest.
Wertheimer says that the format was a comparatively “approachable” technique to take part in what was really Fort’s first-ever artwork honest. For a comparatively new gallery, artwork festivals should not all the time financially viable. “I need to be cautious about prices at my stage of the gallery,” Wertheimer says. “This was a extremely 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 an identical technique to its on-line gross sales mannequin—took a proportion of gross sales as a fee on the honest, quite than charging exhibitors up entrance to take part.
“It is method 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 fascinated about artwork as an avant-garde concept, and never simply pumping the ‘flower portray’ market.”
