Perry Street Rove to Open February 8, 2002, with Group Exhibition of Emerging Artists
Independent curator and artist Kenny Schachter has long been known for exhibitions presented in venues one would not typically associate with fine art-rented, uninhabited, raw spaces used for extended periods of time. While awaiting the completion of two permanent exhibition spaces, conTEMPorary in the West Village, and a Chelsea gallery, both designed by Acconci Studio (under the direction of noted installation artist and sculptor Vito Acconci), Schachter will present an exhibition in a storefront space on Perry Street in New York City scheduled to open February 8, 2002.
The show, entitled Tensionism, will run through March 22nd, 2002 and will feature the work of thirteen artists including: Sol Sax, Susan Smith-Pinelo, Brendan Cass, Sanford Biggers, Graham Gillmore, Misaki Kawai, Zoe Pettijohn, Bob Myers, James A. Brown, Mika Rottenberg, Dave Beech, Rory MacArthur and Peter Fend. Perry Street Rove will also feature an ongoing installation by Vito Acconci detailing the developments in the design and construction of conTEMPorary and the Chelsea gallery project.
The art in this exhibition, largely made after the events of September 11th, is infused with the attendant anxiety that is endemic the world over, and will be so from hereon in. The artists will then be showcased in a series of two person exhibits with the onset of the conTEMPorary gallery opening in April 2002 at 14 Charles Lane, also located in the West Village.
Frederick Kiesler, an inspiration for Schachter's plans for the upcoming spaces, crafted an architectural system of the future in 1925, that he termed "Tensionism". In this model, Kiesler railed against the verticalness of cities tagging high-rises coffins towering up from the earth to the sky; 'one story, two stories-one thousand stories-coffins with air holes.' Kiesler was aiming for a functional, organic architecture liberated from the ground with no walls or foundations but with a system of spans (tension) in free space. In any event, the expression he employed seems metaphorical for the present global state of things where terror is something that everyone can taste and fear has been forever instilled in our minds.
"Take care that the jade you are riding does not bolt under you, and you pitch on those inquisitive noses into the muck"-Frederick Kisler, Manifesto of Tensionism: Organic Building The City in Space Functional Architecture, De Stijl Magazine, 1925.
Located a block east of the new Richard Meier-designed residential tower, Perry Street Rove is the storefront space in the former Cooper Classics building at 132 Perry Street, between Greenwhich and Washington Streets. The building has been turned into a residential loft building, Perry Street Condominiums, in the midst of opening.