The block of white cubes between Tenth and Eleventh: garage doors rolled up, the crowds spilling onto the sidewalk with their wine, three galleries open in a row, the works inside each.
This room interprets the gallery blocks of West Chelsea between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, a district that grew after Dia opened on West 22nd Street in 1987 and SoHo rents pushed dealers north in the 1990s. Gagosian opened its West 24th Street gallery in 1999, and Gladstone and other galleries share the block. The city designated the West Chelsea Historic District in 2008.
Source · NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission ↗
The low former garages turned galleries with roll up fronts, white cube interiors under fluorescent grids, the desks with the price lists, the crowd on the sidewalk at an opening, the High Line at the corner and the river at the end of the street. Mood: six to eight, plastic cups. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.