Download PDF - ARTisSpectrum

Democratizing Art: Keeping Chelsea’s Open Doors Open
by Benjamin Sutton
Counting nearly four hundred galleries, Chelsea is by far
the richest art district in the world. Rising to prominence
within the competitive New York arts scene in the mid- to latenineties,
the name “Chelsea” now holds currency across international
art markets. As art dealer Perry Rubenstein told the
New York Times in May 2007: “If you go to Berlin and tell
an artist that you are only going to show them on 57th Street
and not in Chelsea, they won’t show with you.” For the global
gallery community, Chelsea is the center of the world. With
boundless development in the area for over ten years now,
one wonders how it will continue to change in coming years.
Certainly a multitude of highly-anticipated developments
promises continued vitality. Likewise, important additions like
the High Line elevated park and the planned Whitney Museum
expansion will provide long-standing institutions ensuring
continued cultural relevance. The primary anxiety over
the area’s future springs from fear of over-development and
attendant rising rents. A survey of these factors illuminates
Chelsea’s present situation and foreshadows the directions
of future growth. Meanwhile, a look back to Chelsea’s predecessor,
Soho, helps us understand the decline of that area’s art
scene, and how that experience informs present-day Chelsea.
a result, some expect less financially-secure galleries and not-forprofit
organizations will be squeezed out by unaffordable rent.
However, the most expensive spaces in Chelsea are still leased
for less than half the rate of Soho spaces in the mid-nineties.
Additionally, no other area in Manhattan can provide
the same quality of space for what remains a relatively low
price. For galleries whose success depends on the visibility
and convenience of being in Chelsea, cheaper space in Brooklyn
or Queens implies much less traffic and, ultimately, fewer
sales. After all, part of what makes Chelsea so successful is
its strength in numbers. The thriving gallery life provides sufficient
attraction to bring people from all over New York and
the world to what, otherwise, would be an out of the way area.
Indeed, many speculate that Chelsea’s isolation from any
major transportation hubs has helped pace its development.
Whereas Soho’s central and accessible location
quickly drew crowds of shoppers, diners and investors,
West Chelsea has, until very recently, remained almost exclusively
home to galleries and art-related organizations.
A Pair of Public Projects
Not to Go the Way of Soho
Skeptics have long predicted that Chelsea’s gallery district will
go the way of Soho in the late nineties. There, after a thriving
set of galleries established themselves, encroaching restaurant,
retail and housing developments monopolized space and drove
rents higher than most galleries could afford. With some two
hundred art spaces at its peak, Soho’s concentration and variety
of contemporary art was a completely new phenomenon.
To be sure, the idea of a concentrated area known for its rich
slate of galleries was not new. 57th Street has long had a wellestablished
set of art galleries catering primarily to wealthy inhabitants
of the surrounding area. After all, the census tract most
of the 57th Street galleries lie within has the highest median
income in all of New York. Nonetheless, many galleries made
the move to Soho to find a new audience, hoping for higher visibility
in a booming area. To some extent, Soho was a victim
of its own success. Accessible via multiple subway lines, set in
a fairly central location, a mix of expensive new developments
and coveted historical buildings quickly caused rent to skyrocket,
favoring high-end restaurants and retail over art galleries. In this
financial context, the move to an inexpensive wasteland of untapped
warehouse space was risky but loaded with possibilities.
To claims that West Chelsea will repeat Soho’s cycle of self-annihilating
success, some responses present a direct challenge,
and others betray striking parallels. Though space was boundless
when galleries first migrated West in the mid-nineties, it is now
hotly contested and accordingly priced. A Times article in March
2007 reported that warehouse spaces in Chelsea that went for $8
per square foot in 1994 are now leasing at ten times that rate. As
14 ArtisSpectrum
In the last few years many development projects, some public but
most private, have begun shaping a new Chelsea. The most prominent
and highly-publicized is certainly the High Line – the elevated
railway that several world-renowned architecture firms with
offices in the area are turning into a public park. The park, whose
first stretch opens this fall, will be an attraction unto itself, bringing
new visitors to the area. Though it’s hard to speculate what its
impact will be as subsequent stretches are completed, the prospect
of greenery among the concrete, steel and glass is exciting.
Another important public development is the major cultural
institution that will anchor the High Line at its Southern-most
end, near the intersection of Little West 12th and Washington
Streets in the Meatpacking District. When the project was
first conceived, two potential institutions were in nearby temporary
spaces and expected to leap at the opportunity. Surprisingly,
both the Dia Art Foundation and the New Museum
for Contemporary Art chose other locations, and this early
setback tempered the optimism surrounding the High Line.
Since then, though, the Whitney Museum of American Art has
announced its scheme to build a much-needed new structure on
the site. The plans are not final, but there is reason to be optimistic.
This would provide a second major art institution in
the Chelsea art district, with the Whitney in the area’s Southern
section complementing the more centrally-located Chelsea
Art Museum on West 22nd Street. The new Whitney building,
meanwhile, would be even larger than its current Upper East Side
building, which it would continue to use also. The Whitney has
retained Renzo Piano – whose recently-opened new New York
Times Building has been deemed an architectural triumph – to
design this new museum. The architectural standard set by the