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DIA + DEE = X
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| Nicola Trezzi on a new promising non-profit art space NEW YORK - Although an official artist-centric (and quite romantic) perception of the art field is still dominating our age, on view all over the planet but especially in New York, the real revolution in terms of art research is not down to artists anymore but instead to gallerists and curators - a couple that can be easily entitled “art distributors.” The latest example of this is X, an initiative (this is the word with which this identity has been formalized) started by Chelsea gallerist Elizabeth Dee, whose gallery roster counts hot tips Mika Tajima, Ryan Trecartin and Josephine Meckseper, as well as veterans like Adrian Piper, Renné Green and Alex Bag. | | |  | | Derek Jarman, Studio Bankside 1970-73. Super-8 (transfer to DVD), color and black and white, 6 min. Courtesy of James Mackay, London and Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York | | | | | In a sort of miraculous bravura, for one year Dee got the permission and the funds (recession eat your heart out!) to use the former Dia: New York, located at 548 West 22nd Street. Once the deal has been finalized she will build up a consortium (another word from the press release) of people: gallerists Franco Noero and Friedrich Petzel, curators Lia Gangitano and Massimiliano Gioni, as well as artists Francesco Vezzoli and Maurizio Cattelan to name but a few, and an explosive program that will occupy the duration of one year. Organized into four phases during Spring, Summer and Fall 2009 and Winter 2010, the program at X will feature durational artist interventions, site-specific projects, in-depth historical exhibitions, one night performances, lectures (Semiotext(e)’s Sylvère Lotringer in one of them) and weekly events. The first, opening on March the 7, during the crazy week of the Armory, is a trio of amazing shows: Mika Tajima on the ground floor, a selection of rare super-8mm films by Derek Jarman (who was already protagonist of the first show this year at Dee) on the second, third and fourth floors, and on the roof it will be possible to enjoy Christian Holstad’s Light Chamber (Part 2), which has to be considered an extension of Leather Beach, a somewhat sinister, site-specific installation conceived by the artist in 2006 for an abandoned deli in New York Midtown, on 43rd Street, formerly known as Prince’s Deli. | | |  | | New Humans, Disassociate (in performance), 2007. Courtesy Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York. | | | | | Besides a series of projects to be finalized and even proposed by the people gathered by Dee over the duration of this year, the fortunate visitor will also have the chance to appreciate a landmark work by Dan Flavin (obviously inherited from Dia, which is actually loaning the piece), conceived specifically in 1996 for the stairwells of the building. Another element that makes X intriguing (someone would argue if Wade Guyton does something over there!) is Tajima’s contribution. On that occasion the artist will continue New Humans, a collaborative project meant to be a sort of ‘conceptual umbrella’ founded in 2003 with Howie Chen as an extension of the artist’s thesis project at Columbia University. This time fraction of New Humans will include a stage, a greenroom, a prop house structure and a film, documenting an action that was performed at Artissima, the fair in Turin. | | |  | | The exterior of X, former Dia Center for the Art. | | | | | Back to the beginning. Who is the distributor of X, together with Dee? On the curatorial side New York and Milan-based independent curator Cecilia Alemani will take care of everything, assisted by project curator Jenny Moore, who already occupies the position of director at Dee’s gallery. This one year look-a-like museum corporation (which has all the advantages of not having to deal with a committee for each show!), seems very promising, a new and energetic lighthouse of unpredictability within the city’s current museum and gallery landscape… Welcome X! | | | | | | | | | | | |
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