THE PIT

What makes for a good gallery?

West 26th Street continues to bustle with construction and the next wave is set to begin on West 27th this January. As we continue to settle into our new digs, we've been thinking about what makes for a good gallery, aside from lots of white paint and wallspace.

Leven Betts won an AIA award for their design of our new space, but it still took some "retrofitting" to make it fully functional. See this Art Fag City post for a humorous take on our new look, and this Hungry Hyaena post which mentions our bar area....

Better yet, come by and see for yourself — we'd love to know what you think. Until then, here's a preview of what it looks like filled with people at our recent opening for Coke O'Neal and Leah Tinari.

Hated It!

Hated it! These are words you may often hear walking around Chelsea on any given day. If you don’t actually hear those words, you can probably imagine those words in a thought bubble over many peoples’ heads as they’re cruising the blocks of former hookerville between 10th and 11th Avenues.

I am often quick to judge shows I see and probably don’t give them enough thought before determining my love or hate for one. I must admit, I don’t “get” a lot of what I see in galleries. I guess I don’t understand what makes a show successful. Are sales what determine success? I try not to judge whether an exhibition is a success solely on sales. It’s a tricky situation–we as dealers obviously want to attract an audience to see our shows (critics, collectors, curators) but we also need to generate profit in order to continue doing what we love to do.

Many of my favorite shows, in our gallery and others, are not big money-makers. What is so special about certain shows that always seem to get major reviews? Does the hype make a show “good” or does a “good” show generate hype? Who determines what makes a show a success, and are the artists being left out of this equation? There are thousands of amazing artists living in New York. How do they gauge their level of success?

I wish I knew the answers to these questions and I’m amazed at how often they come up while talking with my friends and colleagues. I hope that galleries show artists they strongly believe in and hopefully success for those artists will follow.

posted by Steven Sergiovanni

A Few Things One Should Do This Month

Suggestions By Leah Tinari

Take a drive up the Hudson to Rhinebeck, NY and fly in a four seater WWI BiPlane at the Aerodrome and then dine at Le Petite Bistro.

Go to St. Marks Place between 2nd Ave and 3rd Ave to Kenka to eat Bull's Penis and get wasted on $8 pitchers of Sapporo and Kirin and $1.50 Sake.

Watch as much Arrested Developement as humanly possible. Actually - buy the 1st season on DVD.

Buy a bottle of Fernet Branca.

Go to the American Museum of Natural History to the Evolution Wing. Very cool unless you're a die-hard Catholic.

Become the Super of a building for free rent, in exchange for taking out people's trash and realizing people use the trash cans here in NYC as a toilet for #2. It's awesome.

Read Wicked by Gregory Maguire and then read Son of a Witch.

Most importanly go to Mixed Greens and see my show of new paintings. It will make you happy and it will make me happy.

all the best,
Leah Tinari

Fair-ogamy

How many art fairs is too much?  Or rather, how many art fairs can a gallery do? 
This month there are four major art fairs across four major European cities (see Battle of the Art Fairs at telegraph.co.uk.)

Come December in Miami, there will be FIVE art fairs over FOUR DAYS: Art Basel, ~scope Miami, NADA, PULSE and Aqua Art Miami.

How can one resist the fair pool in Miami? Lots of attractive propects here–I say why be fair-ogamous. We decided to go out with two fairs in Miami: ~scope and PULSE. Just give us a fresh set of 3M hooks and we'll meet you anywhere. We like to play the fair game.