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It is easy to see how the hectic hustle and bustle of New York City is the appropriate backdrop for the center of the North American art world, but some gallerists and artists are asking art enthusiasts to look north. Upstate New York’s tranquil Columbia County has become the focus of exciting new venues for art, offering a relaxing break from the city while quenching collectors’ thirst for contemporary art. Since many collectors already have weekend escapes from the city in Upstate New York, the cozy villages seemed the perfect venue for meshing culture with the quaint feelings of small town U.S.A. – all within two hours of New York City. Chelsea innovators Jack Shainman and Jeff Bailey have both opened gorgeous Hudson area outposts, giving their well-known roster of artists an inspiring venue for exhibition in spaces that would not be possible in the density of the city. Dealers Zach Feuer and Joel Mesler have joined forces for their Hudson venture, Retrospective, which opened with a sold-out show by Jamian Juliano-Villani earlier this year. Omi International Arts Center in Ghent continues to bring world class artists, writers, performers and dancers to its prestigious residency program and Fields Sculpture Park, while the forthcoming Marina Abramovic Institute will bring a state of the art venue focused on durational performance works to Hudson in 2016. These exciting experiential venues are just a day trip away, inviting art lovers to temporarily abandon the gallery walk in Chelsea for the relaxing experience of art viewing in Hudson.

25 Broad Street, Kinderhook, NY

Jack Shainman Gallery continues their expansion, this time in a Northerly direction, with a new space that pushes beyond the white box feel that their two Chelsea locations provide, and is able to accommodate exhibitions that would rival those of a small museum. Located in the sleepy town of Kinderhook, New York, The School is a 30,000 square foot multi-purpose project space that sits on five acres of land. The venue was renovated from an existing 1929 federal-revival high school by architect Antonio Jiminez, who transformed the two-story school into a sprawling exhibition space. The gymnasium was converted into a 3,000-square-foot gallery with soaring 24-foot ceilings, while the classrooms on the second floor became traditional gallery spaces, and the school’s yard, complete with a flagpole, is a space ripe for a sculpture. The School was inaugurated coinciding with the gallery’s 30th anniversary on May 17 with an incredible performance by artist Nick Cave, which took place on the venue’s lawn, inviting locals to mix with press and guests from New York. For the kickoff performance, Cave recruited dancers from Williams College who performed in Sound suits to music by the Agbekor Society Friends, featuring musicians from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ghana and Benin. Inside, fifteen of Cave’s signature Sound suits will be on display through mid-August by appointment, as a preview to Cave’s September show that will take over the gallery’s Chelsea locations. Also on display in the former classrooms are works by Jack Shainman Gallery artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, Yoan Capote and Kerry James Marshall.

127 Warren Street, Hudson, New York

 

Gallerist Jeff Bailey also got the Hudson fever, and opened his first Upstate space on May 24 of this year. The new location was inspired by Bailey’s frequent trips to his weekend home over the past 20-years, which started his love for the historic architecture, diverse creative community and great restaurants in the area. Bailey felt the proximity to Olana and Bard, as well as the Berkshires, making Hudson an ideal location for art consumption, mixing a world of nature and history with contemporary art to give it a fresh approach and experience. He indulged in this penchant for Hudson’s old architectural gems, and decided to buy a 1880s Italianate Victorian home and turn it into an idyllic venue for his artists, complete with a back garden for displaying sculpture (and relaxing).  The gallery’s first exhibition was a solo show of artist Benny Merris, “All Ways Always,” and will be followed up with a two-person show by painter Jackie Gendel and sculptor Julia Kunin, with an Allen Glatter sculpture in the garden, all opening July 5. Like the slower pace of Upstate New York, Bailey has planned a program only through the end of summer, allowing the fall’s programming to unfold as he is inspired.

727 Warren Street, Hudson, New York

 

Chelsea dealer, Zach Feuer and Lower East Side gallerist, Joel Mesler, of Untitled Gallery joined forces to foray into the less-pressured art world outside Manhattan. In Hudson, Retrospective will allow the two dealers to be more creative with their curating, which will include a Halloween-themed haunted house exhibition designed by artists this fall. The gallery opened early this year with a sold out show from Brooklyn artist Jamian Juliano-Villani, showing that an artist needn’t show in metropolitan New York to get sales. Currently, the checkerboard floored gallery is showing architecturally-inspired sculptures by Sebastian Black, and will continue a roster of talented emerging artists in the future such as Nick Darmstaedter, Wyatt Niehaus and Dean Levin. Feuer and Mesler also plan to utilize the available storefronts around town with pop-up and site-specific installations. The two dealers have thoroughly invested in the area, relocating from Manhattan to call Hudson home to their families.

1405 County Route 22, Ghent, NY

Omi has been a presence in the Hudson River Valley since 1992, luring creatives out of New York to experience the work of their storied artist-in-residence programs on the 500 acres of rolling green hills, small forests and ponds. The center offers four residencies for visual arts, writers, musicians and dance, inviting innovators from around the world to convene, share, and create. The center’s biggest draw is their world class Fields Sculpture Park, which has over 100 permanent and rotating contemporary sculptures on display. Throughout the sprawling grounds, visitors can discover works by artists such as Alice Aycock, Kim Beck, Paula Hayes, Jon Isherwood, Tom Doyle and Philip Grausman. The lush landscape is broken up into different areas, including a wheat field, back woods and pond area, each creating a separate serene atmosphere for art viewing. Aside from the incredible sculpture park, visitors can also take a peek into private artist studios, view permanent and temporary exhibitions in their gallery space, or attend a concert or performance. Omi serves as an incubator for creativity, removing the pressures of city life so that artists may immerse themselves in their work amongst serenity.

 

(Forthcoming)

620 Columbia Street, Hudson, New York

The performance art world waits in anticipation for the forthcoming MAI to open in Hudson in 2016, bringing the first venue dedicated to durational performances. The 34,000-square-foot venue project was dreamed up by artist Marina Abramovic and MAI Director Serge le Borgne, to create a space where viewers can experience long performances comfortably, with the same endurance as the artists performing. The venue will utilize the “Abramovic Method” which includes exercises and specific environments that will help visitors to develop skills for durational observing. The project has even called for the design of special wheeled chairs in which viewers can recline, and fall in and out of consciousness during performances lasting several hours.  Although the venue has been purchased with planned renovations designed by Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu, the Institute is still seeking funding. The venue also hopes to bridge the gap between art and the community, as Le Borgne told ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ "Hudson has the same problems and difficulties as the huge metropolis: unemployment, racism, and culture is one of the tools to diminish or absorb these difficulties. In one or two words, culture is 'a material' that allows people from different generations, different backgrounds, different origins, different social and educational levels, etc… to look at themselves just to be able to understand each other.” MAI announced last month the launch of IMMATERIAL, a digital platform and online journal that will showcase immaterial art, long durational work and multidisciplinary collaboration, giving visitors ongoing web content to whet their appetites for the highly anticipated venue.

This beautiful part of the Hudson Valley, on the East side of the river, is so much more than a nature retreat from the city. It is an art-ensconced region that every art enthusiast should experience.  And any way that you travel, once past the George Washington Bridge the roads open with hardly any traffic in sight, catapulting you to a country oasis that is closer and more pleasant than the bumper-to-bumper traffic that any Hampton’s weekend requires.