James Fuentes staying true to downtown roots at new Tribeca headquarters

James Fuentes Gallery, lengthy a forward-looking presence within the modern artwork scene on New York’s Decrease East Aspect, is the most recent house to decamp to Tribeca. Somewhat than an act of trend-following, nevertheless, Fuentes’s choice to relocate his headquarters to the bustling gallery district represents the pure subsequent step for a vendor who has been devoted to championing the inventive ferment of downtown artists for almost 20 years.

On 8 March, Fuentes inaugurated his new house at 52 White Avenue with Colour Codes (till April 20), a solo exhibition of works by the late Japanese American artist Kikuo Saito (1939-2016). Curated by Christopher Y. Lew, it’s the most intensive presentation thus far of the artist’s Monochromatic sequence, made up of large-scale work executed between 1990 and 1993 at Saito’s first New York studio, situated simply six blocks away from the gallery’s newest handle.

“I actually see Tribeca as Kikuo’s neighbourhood,” Fuentes tells The Artwork Newspaper, including that these work “have been produced on Chambers Avenue, so it felt like a really becoming alternative to current these works in situ.”

Constructing a historical past

The gallery’s transfer from its dwelling of 14 years, at 55 Delancey Avenue, represents a major milestone for Fuentes, whose upbringing was break up between the Decrease East Aspect and the Bronx. Since establishing his eponymous house in 2007, he has been extensively recognised for spotlighting an eclectic group of artists with practices exterior the business conventions of the modern artwork market, with a particular curiosity within the evolving legacy of downtown New York. The programme encompasses rising and late-career artists who’ve been traditionally ignored, from the 35-year-old conceptualist Amalia Ulman to the 80-year-old painter and printmaker Elsa Rensaa.

Fuentes’s curiosity in curation was sparked as an undergraduate learning film-making and anthropology at Bard School in upstate New York from 1994 to 1998. There he was immersed in a neighborhood of artists and mentors and repeatedly frequented public lectures hosted by the varsity’s Heart for Curatorial Research, then in its early levels of growth.

“I type of picked up this concept of curating as a career by way of osmosis, learning adjoining to the Bard Heart for Curatorial Research and spending time within the library based by Marieluise Hessel,” Fuentes says. “The programme planted a seed.”

Upon returning to New York Metropolis after commencement, Fuentes noticed a lot of his friends struggling to get their bearings and discover venues to point out their work. On this he noticed a chance to use his foundational information of curation to help the inventive neighborhood round him.

“Proper out of faculty, I had a really DIY mentality, and I used to be surrounded by all of those proficient artists all the time,” he says. “That actually motivated me, and is type of the way it all started.”

Mentorship issues

Fuentes discovered an surprising mentor early on in Jonas Mekas (1922-2019), the lauded experimental film-maker and co-founder of the Anthology Movie Archives. Fuentes organised reveals for Mekas across the globe on and off over a roughly 20-year interval that started with a chilly name to the artist within the late Nineties to pitch him on exhibiting in a 300 sq. ft storefront the place Fuentes was additionally dwelling on the time. Working with Mekas not solely taught the budding gallerist how you can current area of interest experimental works to modern artwork audiences but additionally knowledgeable his whole strategy to the artwork world.

“Mekas was beneficiant, inclusive and would all the time exit of his approach to introduce folks to 1 one other,” Fuentes says. “Observing the best way he operated in his discipline was immensely informative for me.”

After just a few years of working with the seasoned gallerist Jeffrey Deitch and curating reveals at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Fuentes opened a gallery below his personal title in a two-storey constructing on Saint James Place in Chinatown in 2007. He confronted his first main disaster quickly after, when the Nice Recession pilloried the artwork market and threatened Fuentes with the upcoming closure of his enterprise just one yr after its opening. But the vendor was undeterred, as evidenced by a solution he remembers giving in a New York Journal story asking what he would do if he have been unable to promote work within the coming months.

“With out even interested by it, my reflex was to say that I’d get one other job to complement financing the gallery,” says Fuentes. As inspiration, he cites one other mentor, the longtime New York vendor Mitchell Algus, who labored for many years as a public faculty trainer in Queens whereas programming his personal namesake business gallery throughout his off hours. “That allowed him to have a wage and likewise advocate for artwork that perhaps wasn’t so apparent or straightforward to promote,” he provides. (Algus retired from instructing in 2014 however continues to function the gallery.)

Fuentes survived the recession and has gone on to thrive within the time since. After three years working his unique house, he set his sights on shifting to a extra central location. On the recommendation of the critic Roberta Smith, he upgraded to a brand new house at 55 Delancey Avenue, inside strolling distance of the place he grew up on New York’s Decrease East Aspect, in 2010. His regular success there ultimately led to a bi-coastal enlargement; Fuentes debuted a Los Angeles gallery within the burgeoning Melrose Hill neighbourhood in Could 2023.

‘Renovating’ and relocating

Fuentes considers his programme a type of “renovating artwork historical past” by bringing artists from the fringes to the forefront. For instance, final September in LA, the gallery introduced Shifting Via, the primary solo exhibition within the metropolis by the American feminist painter Juanita McNeely (1936-2023). The present centred on autobiographical works originating in her experiences with most cancers and abortion earlier than the latter’s legalisation within the US. Fuentes’s illustration of McNeely propelled her to a brand new stage of prominence, with the Whitney Museum of American Artwork and the Rubell Museum in Washington, D.C. buying her work.

“I am grateful for the truth that we’re in a second now the place society has shifted its priorities by way of which artists are a part of the dialogue, however there’s nonetheless a lot work to be finished,” Fuentes says.

Becoming neatly into this framework is his choice to inaugurate the Tribeca location with a solo exhibition by Saito. The presentation underscores Fuentes’s dedication to showcasing each revolutionary, largely under-the-radar works, particularly by artists knowledgeable by downtown New York, and the historic narrative of his environment. He identifies “being in direct dialogue [with] the locality of the gallery” as key to his programme’s identification, including of his house’s newest migration: “I am excited in regards to the shifting context as a result of there are new narratives and new blind spots that we’re in a position to uncover and produce forth.”

“For the primary time ever within the historical past of the gallery, we’ll be centrally situated and in the midst of the dialog,” he provides. “I really feel like I owe it to the artists and the programme to be entrance and centre, and it looks as if the suitable time to try this.”