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Lydia Venieri
Stux Gallery
By Mary Hrbacek
Venieri’s highly focused digital photographs present
sweetly sinister space-age dolls whose eyes reflect the horrific
images of everyday violence that makes the six o’clock
news. The use of archival inkjet on polysatin is particularly
effective, creating beautifully resolved crystal clear images
that belie reality. The dolls themselves appear to have mutated
into nightmarish toys that have somehow managed to come alive,
with eyes wide open, clearly mirroring the violence they witness.
We expect dolls to be fun, harmless children’s playthings;
these elicit a feeling of unease, an inkling that something
is not right. The small porcelain-like hands are raised to
tiny mouths in self-protective gestures meant to ward off
unpleasant sensations and feelings. The big eyes and cute
freckled faces that recall Japanese animation, retail unwanted
messages about the banality of evil and a new generation’s
ready acceptance of violence. Venieri has cropped the formats,
excluding all traces of forms that surround the dolls. Our
attention focuses on perfect, pretty facial features with
orbs sufficiently large to deliver the bad news.
The little girl dolls, seen right up-close, act as spookily
robotic carriers of evil tidings, but they remain beautiful
to look at. Their authenticity is believably expressed by
the subtle application of make-up, and the slight variations
in the skin tones. These works are unsettling, unusual, and
quite fascinatingly symptomatic of the hybrid manner with
which society disseminates its negativity through presumably
innocent, doll-like children. Children may look innocent,
but they are often forced to carry all the baggage that their
parents refuse to let go of, resulting in cycles of destruction
that seem infinite. It is as if beauty resides at the core
of devastation, making it impossible to stem the tide of something
inevitable. These unsettling images hint at the seductive
compulsion at the heart of the human survival response, a
response that makes moderation an untenable choice.
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John Kingerlee
AFP Galleries
By Mary Hrbacek
John Kingerlee’s new paintings and collages glisten
with a palpable sense of the cool air and wan, warm light
that suffuses the rugged terrain of his Irish homeland and
the muted glow of the shaded bazaars, found in Morocco, where
he also resides. The two themes complement each other, offering
a glimpse into the mind of this painter, whose life experiences
are irrevocably recorded in his art
These process-based, thickly textured abstract grid pieces
have an ethereal, organic appearance that is unusual in such
a physically concentrated art. The works, modest in scale,
have a commanding though unassuming presence that is full
of breath and air. These contradictions add an an element
of surprise to the work; the combination of physicality and
spirituality yields a transcendent quality that speaks of
essence and evolution. Each rectangle in Kingerlee’s
variegated grid is lost and then found again, in ways that
defy the definition of minimal subject matter.
In his semi-abstract work, Three Heads, (2002) Kingerlee
establishes a fragmented and distressed head that appears
to transform itself, evolving from a strong physical presence
to an ethereal essence of something. The grids hint at metaphoric
references such as aerial glimpses of fields, yet the viewer
is seduced by the complexity of thick and thin scraps of paint,
within patches of co-mingled warm and cool hues. In formats
of relatively modest dimensions, the pieces assume a quiet,
yet profound pictorial scale.
The semi-abstract motifs the artist pursues in his Moroccan
bazaar themes provide a complement to the intentional diffidence
of the abstract grids. Here we see human figures economically
executed with just a few fresh brush strokes, situated within
a characteristic marketplace venue. This exotic locale of
commerce in an intimate, age-old setting contrasts with a
modern shopping mall. The inclusion of postage stamps or segments
of a city street map brings the viewer into the present day,
with contrasting elements residing within one format. The
autobiographical component adds a personal touch that verges
on visual correspondence.
In today’s open-minded art world there is a place for
an unprecedented range of artistic expression, but quiet strength
is rare. In Kingerlee’s paintings, the contrasting elements
of coolness and warmth, experience and innocence, physicality
and spirituality, and abstract and representational, produce
a richness of form and content that is unique and personal.
His persistent commitment to staying on his own path appears
here to have converged with the art world’s best instincts.
M
Ed. Note:
AFP Galleries is located at 41 East 57th St., New York, NY
10022 +1 212 230 1003. This show was curated by Bill Zimmer,
who recently passed away.
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This Article
Chelsea: Past and Present
A Conversation with Stuart Siegel
By M. Brendon MacInnis
Stuart Siegel has been working as a commercial real estate
broker in Chelsea since before the area’s transformation
into the center of the art world for contemporary art. He
brokered the deal that led to the construction of the Chelsea
Arts Tower, a commercial condominium tower built for the needs
of galleries and art related businesses. Mr. Siegel spoke
with M about the changing face of Chelsea, tracing the history
of the once “wild west” of Manhatten that ultimately
changed the face of the art world.
The Chelsea Arts Tower is unique, in that galleries purchase
their spaces instead getting a lease. Who came up with that
idea? The idea came about, really because we have been
working in this market for all these years, and the volume
of customers that wanted to buy versus lease outpaced the
rental market.
By customers, you mean commercial tenants? Mostly
galleries. The number of calls that we receive saying "What
can I buy? What can I buy?" That was due mostly to low
interest rates. This started back maybe four or five years
ago, when the overall market in New York had already recovered
from the early nineties and was at a very steep incline. And
once the ball started to roll in Chelsea, and the galleries
started to leave Soho….
When was that? You mean around 1997, 1998? Yes.
Chelsea offered two things that Soho lacked at the time, which
was cheap rent and the type of buildings that galleries wanted;
a lot of garages, a lot of column-free spaces, and a lot of
high ceilings. So it lent itself to a perfect transformation.
Who was buying these buildings? Was it basically
real estate investors or people in the art world? You
know, it’s interesting. The reason that the Chelsea
Arts Tower was conceived was because there was nothing else
left to buy that a gallery could just come in and renovate,
or build, to make any sense. The numbers just couldn’t
work any longer. If you had a 50 x 100 foot lot in Chelsea
ten years ago, that lot may have sold for about $800,000 or
maybe a million dollars. Today that same 50 x 100 lot would
sell for eight or ten million dollars. So for a gallery who
wants a one-story, 5000 square foot space, it costs eight
or ten million dollars for the lot, and then to build the
building, you know, it’s another two million dollars
or something; you couldn’t make enough money. No gallery
could afford a twelve million dollar gallery.
When you look at the art world in New York, you’ve
got of course Chelsea, and then nearby there’s the Fashion
District. Couldn’t galleries have expanded there?
Yes, but I don’t think that the spaces offered the same
things and the prices were not that different than in West
Chelsea.
What about Soho? Do you think that Soho is finished as
an art district? The last vestiges of the art world in
Soho are not far off. But there are still some interesting
things happening in Tribeca. Tribeca may be a little different.
Soho has become so important in terms of the national retail
scene, that for a gallery to compete with the national chains,
such as the GAP and Williams & Sonoma, companies where
they can afford almost any rent to capture the volume of people
that are in Soho; it’s going to be very difficult for
galleries to stay.
You know, speaking to that, in terms of volume, do you
think that the traffic in Chelsea is ever going to be like
the kind of traffic that would attract those big retailers?
There are still no subway lines out there... Yes,
well you know, I don’t see a wave of those types of
companies coming because there is not enough foot traffic
for them. But I think that the demand for retail in Chelsea
is going to increase because of the very nature of all of
the residencies that are coming. They rezoned Chelsea last
summer; the avenues are residential, though the mid blocks
are still commercial because everybody wants to keep galleries
in Chelsea. But they’re allowing thousands and thousands
of residents; condo units and rental units. Many of them are
on the way; they’re being designed and approved. In
the next 12 months, several will break ground.
So you could end up with something like Williamsburg,
where you have people living where the galleries are.
Yes. I think when you have people living there, people are
going to want more restaurants, which Chelsea needs. I also
think that the influence of the night clubs on 27th and 28th
Streets, which has been a bit of a blight on Chelsea, will
probably be gone. Those sites; as those leases run over and
those clubs change hands, those sites will get developed.
What happened to the site where the Tunnel night club
used to be? Is the Tunnel still around? The club is not,
no. There’s no club there at all. The owners of the
property basically turned that space into an event space.
I was there not long ago for a benefit; it’s really
an incredible space, much bigger than the Tunnel night club
was. It runs from 11th through 12th avenue. I think people
can rent it for a wedding or something at this point. But
there’s no night club there.
How about an art fair? Is it a good venue for an art
fair? You know, it probably is. It would have to be lit
properly. It’s certainly long enough and it’s
the width of an entire city block; that’s an interesting
idea. Actually, the owners of that building, which is mostly
used for storage now, they have been trying to introduce galleries
to that building, and four or five galleries have just opened
up there in the past six months.
Is the building at 511 West 25th Street, the Whitehall
Building, is that a model for what you’re intending
for the Chelsea Arts Tower? 511 is a little bit different
in that those are 10,000 square foot floors; and there are
really only a few 10,000 square foot galleries in New York,
say the likes of Larry Gagosian. We have a much smaller foot
print, and we wanted it to be fairly exclusive, ideally one
gallery per floor; 3000 to 4000 square feet is a sweet spot
for galleries.
You’re only selling units, not renting, right?
That’s right, these are commercial condos. That’s
what makes it so interesting and so unique. You can buy your
floor and do what you want.
How many galleries are in there so far? Marlborough
Gallery is on the ground and the second floor, from Chelsea.
The third floor is Tina Kim, from 57th Street. The fourth,
fifth, and sixth floors are available. We’re talking
to several galleries now, but those are available. The seventh
floor will be a high-end contemporary Asian gallery. It’s
not an existing gallery in New York; it’s people in
the art world who have a financial interest.
Are there any constraints on the people who buy these
units, in terms of renting them out? You can rent it,
you can subdivided it into half, you can sell it; it’s
just like owning a residential condo in that you can do what
you want with it.
What do they sell for? The three floors that we
have; the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors are all the same
price. They’re $3,060,000 each.
How big are they? They’re 4140 square feet.
That’s 734 dollars a square foot.
How does that compare with midtown or other parts of
New York? For the most part, it’s more expensive.
It’s more expensive? Yes. And the reason for
that is, there are not a lot of commercial condos in New York,
just a handful of them. And there are no new construction
condos; they’re all conversions of buildings that were
rentals. New construction is very very costly in New York,
in terms of buying a piece of land and constructing a building.
Who came up with the idea in the first place to build
the Chelsea Arts Tower. Was it your idea? Yes, I guess
you can say that. Well, I have a partner, Allen Weisman, and
we have been working in Chelsea for fourteen years. The owner
of the property, who is also the owner of 511 and all of the
red brick buildings to the left of that, he also owns the
parking lot. And I’m very friendly with him, Jack Fuchs,
he’s a terrific guy. Jack called me up almost two summers
ago and he said "Stuart I’m ready to sell my parking
lot." So, originally, I was thinking of him selling it
and then building a rental building. We ran some numbers looking
at the construction costs and the cost of buying the land,
and the rents wouldn’t support any investor or developer
who would have to at least break even or make a profit. The
numbers just didn’t work. So that’s when a light
bulb went on; I have say five callers a week asking "What
do you have for 3000 to 4,000 square feet that I can buy?"
And I thought the answer was to build a commercial condo.
When was that? This was in the summer of 2004, shortly
after Jack called me to tell me he wanted to sell the land.
How did you decide on the number of floors? Did you just
max out the air rights? Jack had unused air rights over
the four-story red brick building that’s on the site,
and so that was included; we bought those as well, and basically
maxed out what the site could hold. So, when we were talking
with the developer about this, you know, he was still not
convinced without hearing from perspective buyers that there
was a market for this. So we set up a focus group with three
galleries that we brought to our office with the developer.
Can you tell me who they were? Sure; they had no
invested interest at the time. Coming to our meeting was the
Marlborough Gallery, who ultimately ended up becoming a purchaser.
They came early on.
Who did you speak with at the Marlborough Gallery?
Tara Reddi is the director who was involved with the meeting,
and then John Helmrich who is the CFO, and so they were probably
the two most involved at that time. And then Susan Sheehan
from 57th Street was involved, and Mary Ryan was there, who
is also from 57th Street. So we had two or three meetings
where we had presented them with a very rough idea of how
the floor plates would look before the developer even signed
the contract.
What is the make-up of the people in the building?
The first eight floors are galleries, and then above that,
any other commercial use; collectors, private dealers. For
example, on the ninth floor, Glenn Fuhrman keeps his collection.
Anything art related.
Is it a general expectation, that it is art related,
or is that written into the contract? It’s a general
expectation. If a gallery buys the 5th floor and in five years
they want to sell it to an architect, they’re not restricted.
Who’s got the penthouse? The developer has
retained those floors. The 18th floor was sold to an investor
who also bought the 8th floor, and we have subsequently just
sold it to Calvin Klein.
How did you get Calvin Klein? He found us.
I mean, how do you get someone who is doing okay in Midtown
or Uptown to come over here? What kinds of incentives are
offered? It’s not that they’re are such incentives;
but the theory that we use is to take a long view, take a
ten or fifteen year view, and you calculate what you pay in
rent for the next ten or fifteen years. If the property only
appreciated three or four percent or less than it has in the
past previous ten or fifteen years, then it’s going
to be a very wise investment. You’re not only locking
in what your costs are going to be forever, basically, but
you hopefully will participate in some appreciation or at
the very least, barring some crisis in New York or something
in the economy, you’re going to get the original dollars
back as opposed to paying rent, where at the end you have
nothing to show for it.
Tell me something about the architecture. There
are three architects; Alan Garry is the guy who designed the
building. And then midstream, maybe seven or eight months
ago, the developer made a decision to bring in HOK [Hellmuth
Obata + Kassebaum] to change the façade a little bit.
Originally, the building was going to look more concrete in
color, and then HOK came in and made some changes to the windows.
Rather than have no space to hang art, we created one solid
wall with no windows. They also changed the terraces. And
then Richard Gluckman is doing the lobby. So we have three
architects.
Is there going to be ad space on the outside of the building?
No. That was a bone of contention; the building will have
no ads on it. The concern was, we are going to have this very
high-class, sexy gallery building. And it could happen that
someone would put up an ad that no one could agree on. So,
it was decided that the building would have no ad space on
it. It keeps the integrity of the building intact.
How unusual is it to sell commercial condos? It’s
pretty unusual. Most companies expand and contract, so a rental
situation is more attractive than owning something which also
ties up capital. Galleries are much more like retailers. Retailers
don’t typically take on new space when they’re
doing great and then give up space; they’re pretty consistent,
they deal with what they’ve got. And the good galleries
that are in New York, ten, twenty, or thirty years; they’ve
been very consistent with the amount of space they have. So
we view them as retailers, and they view real estate in terms
of a long lease. They don’t necessarily buy their space,
but they tend to sign long leases. Owners in New York [building
owners] don’t like to sign long term leases. A typical
lease is maybe five to ten years, and for a gallery that is
typically in business for thirty years, ten years doesn’t
offer that much protection.
Is there any criteria for what kind of gallery moves
in? For example, will the current occupants have a say about
who moves in? It’s not like a co-op board where
the board gets together and says "Oh, you know we really
don’t like the music industry, we are not going to let
you sell your floor to a music company." They don’t
have that ability, but they do have the right to step into
the shoes of that buyer and basically buy the floor; and prevent
whoever it is from buying the floor. The right of first refusal,
which is very typical in most new condominium situations.
You know, putting too many restrictions on owning real estate
makes it more like a co-op; one of the luxuries of owning
a condo is that you have a lot more flexibility in terms of;
yes you can rent it, and you can refinance it, and you can
do all of the things that people like to do with real estate
without having this board that can say no at the drop of a
hat.
I’ve seen a lot of new buildings go up in Chelsea,
and to be honest, it’s pretty bland stuff. How did it
happen that this building turned out to be a pretty distinctive
piece of architecture? That’s a credit to the developers.
It’s a partnership between Jack Gluckman, Young Woo
and Margarette Lee. They’re very unique developers;
they weren’t necessarily looking to just put up any
old building and make the most money they can and move on.
They really wanted to make a statement, because they knew
early on before we even closed on the property that the zoning
is changing in Chelsea. Not only was the residential coming,
but the height was changing in Chelsea. You could never rebuild
the Chelsea Arts Tower the way it is today. The zoning changed
shortly after we finished our foundation last summer. The
new height restriction is 135 feet; we are 280 feet.
So they knew that this building was going to become a landmark;
it’s going to be, for the foreseeable future, the tallest
building in Chelsea. And they really wanted to make a statement,
to do something a little bit special; they researched interesting
materials, and they got some great architects involved. I
think that I would credit them for wanting to make a statement.
Ed. Note:
Since our conversation took place, earlier this year, the
Chelsea Arts Tower has opened to full occupancy and ground
has broken on other projects in the neighborhood. The Terminal
Building (where the Tunnel night club was located), which
I had suggested as a “good venue for an art fair,”
has indeed been chosen as the site for one of the satellite
art fairs taking place in the shadow of The Armory Show early
next year. Meanwhile, the remarkable transition of Chelsea
continues unabated; Barry Friedman LTD moved from Uptown to
Chelsea this season, Marlbororo Gallery purchased the ground
floor of the Chelsea Arts Tower, Moti Hason Gallery took a
large ground flooor space nearby, and a wave of galleries
that had long been fixtures of the Williamsburg art scene
have migrated to Chelsea, almost en masse, many of them filling
out the vast space of the Terminal Building. The has also
been talk of expanding a subway line to the area.
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