Art Gallery, James Cohan announces the opening of a new 5,000 square foot location in Tribeca. The new space will occupy the second floor of the historic 52 Walker Street building. The new space will open October 7, 2021, with a solo exhibition of work by Gauri Gill. The space is being designed by longtime gallery collaborator HS2 Architects.
This expansion is necessitated by the growth of the gallery’s program; in the past 18 months, James Cohan has added five artists to its roster, including Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Eamon Ore-Giron, Christopher Myers, Gauri Gill and Naudline Pierre. The new location will provide more space for large-scale installations by artists including Firelei Báez, Grace Weaver, Teresa Margolles, and Yinka Shonibare CBE.
The design of the new location highlights the dramatic proportions of the loft building, with eight floor-to-ceiling windows across the main gallery space. The addition of this new location doubles James Cohan’s exhibition space, bringing it to a total of 12,000 square feet.
“Opening a neighboring space allows us to present concurrent exhibitions that resonate. For example, in October we will present the first U.S. solo gallery shows for two international superstars, reflecting the international breadth of our program: photographer Gauri Gill, and multimedia artist and activist Emeka Ogboh. Looking forward, we will present the gallery’s first solo show with New York-based artist Christopher Myers, featuring his new tapestry works at 52 Walker, and will present new ceramic sculptures by another New York artist, Kathy Butterly, at 48 Walker. Both artists use craft media to explore contemporary concepts of narrative and form,” says Jane Cohan.
The inaugural exhibition at 52 Walker Street is a presentation of new photographs from Delhi-based artist Gauri Gill’s collaborative series Acts of Appearance, shown in her solo show at MoMA PS1 in 2018. This body of work invites the local Adivasi indigenous community of Jawhar to participate in their own representation. Gill commissioned papier-mâché artists of the Kokna and Warli tribes in Maharashtra to go beyond their traditional mask-making to develop a new set of forms worn by the collaborator-subjects and photographed by the artist.
On view concurrently is an exhibition by Nigerian, Berlin-based Emeka Ogboh, whose recent “Lost Person” poster campaign was seen in bus stops across Germany and led to the repatriation of looted Benin Bronzes from German museum collections. This exhibition marks the US premiere of The Way Earthly Things Are Going, 2017 commissioned for documenta 14 and recently acquired by the Tate.
James Cohan will officially manage all of the gallery’s operations from Tribeca, further making its mark in the neighborhood’s rapidly growing art scene. The gallery will no longer occupy the 291 Grand Street space on the Lower East Side.