Description:This tour describes places that hosted art in unofficial, temporary, or spontaneous ways. The featured spots exemplify the spirit of interactivity that has defined the New York art world since it took preeminence after World War 2. Collaborative environments like the ones featured on this tour have given way to an art that is dynamic as the city itself, and which has been proven to transform the places in which it has taken hold, as in the cases of The West Village, Soho and the Bowery. This walk through downtown will remind listeners that despite the presence of countless galleries and an apparently creative citizenry, only a tiny percentage of downtown’s most important art spaces physically remain. In fact, spaces that were transient, like these, have more in common with culture-at-large, and, arguably, can make a bigger impact on it.
This tour celebrates a new exhibition from No Longer Empty, the organization that has been continuing the tradition of temporary art, central to New York’s revitalization process throughout its history. All of No Longer Empty’s projects take place in vacant buildings, filling them with art in hopes of attracting renters. For this particular show, exhibitors respond to the raw, new space at 215 East Houston to take up the issue of exhibition itself. In a statement No Longer Empty has said “the show addresses the concepts of reinvention and reconfiguration of a traditional exhibition space. The traditional exhibition format is dissected and issues such as space, memory, location, theme, production, participation, duration, curator, artist and public are analyzed. With works that speak about the Lower East Side and its currents inhabitants (such as Marinella Senatore´s film “Variations” and Ed Purver´s Dropshots participatory project,) About Face invites you to ponder on how can the “art space” be a part of keeping the heritage of a neighborhood alive while engaging with its future possibilities.”
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