With the announcement this week that New York dealer Lisa Cooley will be closing her seven-year-old downtown gallery, ARTnews is taking a look at a slightly earlier generation of galleries—call it the NADA 1.0 Generation.
The first edition of the New Art Dealers Alliance fair in Miami took place in 2003, the second year of Art Basel Miami Beach. (Cooley, as it happens, was there, working as a director for Houston gallery Mixture; she would go on to work for New York’s Nicole Klagsbrun, another gallery in the first NADA fair, before opening her own space.) It was a scrappy event if there ever was one, occupying a venue around the corner from the Basel’s Convention Center digs that Walter Robinson, writing in a prior incarnation of Artnet magazine, characterized as a “garage-like ambience of concrete floors and cinder-block walls – possibly the most dismal setting imaginable.” The fair nevertheless generated ample sales, riding a wave of interest in emerging art that came about as the dot-com bust receded. Eighty percent of the participating galleries opened between 1998 and 2003. As Robinson pointed out in his report, the fair included a crop of new and newish galleries that had recently been profiled in New York magazine. The magazine called spaces like John Connelly Presents, Participant Inc, Daniel Reich, and Rivington Arms “the art world’s alternative Establishment” that is “pushing the boundaries of the white cube.”
Of the 40 galleries and nonprofits that took part in the first edition of the NADA fair, only 13 remain in business—Derek Eller Gallery, Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, James Fuentes, Galerie Zink, Inman Gallery, Moniquemeloche, Momenta Art, Taro Nasu Gallery, Participant Inc, Peres Projects, Kavi Gupta, Hiromi Yoshii, and ZieherSmith. Almost half of the closures took place between 2008 and 2010, as the recession hit. Closures in the past few years include Winkleman in 2014 and Wallspace in 2015. Details below.
Allston Skirt Gallery
Boston
Closed in 2008.
Massimo Audiello
New York
Appears to have closed in New York in 2009, and reopened in Mexico City in 2011. Seems not to have had a show since 2013.
Bellwether Gallery
Brooklyn
Moved to Chelsea, closed in 2009.
Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery
Chicago
Renamed Tony Wight gallery sometime after 2005. Appears to have closed around 2012.
Clementine Gallery
New York
Closed in 2008.
John Connelly Presents
New York
Closed in 2010. Connelly went on to lead the Felix Gonzales-Torres Foundation. He is now a partner at the advisory firm Connelly & Light.
Debs & Co.
New York
Closed.
Derek Eller Gallery
New York
Open, recently moved from Chelsea to the Lower East Side.
Fredericks & Freiser Gallery
New York
Open.
James Fuentes
New York
Open.
g-modul
Paris
Closed in 2008.
Mary Goldman Gallery
Los Angeles
Closed circa 2009.
Galerie Zink & Gegner
Munich
Open, as galerie zink.
GO2
New York
Closed.
Grimm/Rosenfeld
Munich
Closed. Andreas Grimm now works for Eva Presenhuber Gallery in Zurich. Adrian Rosenfeld is an art dealer in Los Angeles.
Guild & Greyshkul
New York
Closed in 2009. Its three founders, artists Anya Kielar, Johannes VanDerBeek, and Sara VanDerBeek, all have successful solo careers.
Inman Gallery
Houston
Open.
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
Brooklyn
Closed in 2011 and later discussed move to Kazakhstan. Juschka resurfaced in 2015 as director of Lichtundfire, a “new cultural platform and artists’ management site” with a space on the Lower East Side.
Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery
New York
Closed in 2007.
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery
New York
Gallery closed in 2013. Klagsbrun maintains an office and showroom in Chelsea and has continued to organize pop-up shows around town.
LFL Gallery
New York
Became Zach Feuer gallery in 2004. Merged with Joel Mesler, former co-proprietor of Untitled gallery, to become Feuer Mesler in 2015.
Moniquemeloche Gallery
Chicago
Open.
Mixture Contemporary Art
Houston
Closed.
Momenta Art
Brooklyn
Nonprofit, open.
Jessica Murray Projects
Brooklyn
Moved to Chelsea, closed in 2007.
Taro Nasu Gallery
Tokyo
Open.
Participant Inc
New York
Open.
Peres Projects
Los Angeles
Open, now located in Berlin.
Plus Ultra Gallery
Brooklyn
Changed name to Edward Winkleman gallery and moved to Chelsea. Closed in 2014.
Daniel Reich Gallery
New York
Closed in 2011.
Rivington Arms
New York
Closed in 2008.
Roebling Hall
Brooklyn
Closed in 2009
1R Gallery
Chicago
Moved to Chelsea and changed name to Van Harrison gallery; closed. (Not to be confused with 11R Gallery, the former Eleven Rivington, which has been in business on the Lower East Side since 2007.)
Lucas Schoormans Gallery
New York
Closed in 2009.
Schroeder Romero
Brooklyn
Moved to Chelsea; closed in 2012.
Suite 106 Gallery
New York
Closed.
Vedanta Gallery
Chicago
Changed name to Kavi Gupta gallery. Open.
Wallspace
New York
Closed in 2015.
Hiromi Yoshii
Tokyo
Open.
ZieherSmith
New York
Merged with Horton gallery in 2014 to form ZieherSmith & Horton. They split apart in 2016, with ZieherSmith remaining in its West 20th Street location in Chelsea.