White Columns is New York City's oldest alternative non-profit art space.[1] White Columns is known as a showcase for up-and-coming artists, and is primarily devoted to emerging artists who are not affiliated with galleries. All work submitted is looked at by the director. Some of the artists receive studio visits and some of those artists are exhibited. White Columns maintained a slide registry of emerging artists, which is now an online curated artist registry.
History and locations
White Columns was founded in 1970 in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City by Jeffrey Lew and Gordon Matta-Clark. It was then known as 112 Workshop/112 Greene Street.
In 1979 it relocated to 325 Spring Street and was renamed White Columns. Directors of White Columns have included Josh Baer, Tom Solomon, Bill Arning, Paul Ha, Lauren Ross, and current director Matthew Higgs.[2][3][4][5]
In 2006, director Matthew Higgs initiated the White Columns Annual, a yearly exhibition with guest curators that highlights work that has been on view in New York City in the prior year.[22][23] It has been curatored by artists and art figures like Mary Manning, Bridget Donahue, Bob Nickas, Pati Hertling, and Randy Kennedy.[23][24][25][26]
At 112 Workshop, artists were given free rein to produce, experiment and challenge art orthodoxies. In this crumbling large space, Gordon Matta-Clark installed his work Walls Paper in 1972.[30] Vito Acconci locked himself in a tiny room with a fighting cock in a piece he called Combination (1971).[31] Following their first New York performance at the Leo Castelli Gallery, Richard Landry and Musicians presented five concerts at 112 in March 1972 and Carmen Beuchat presented her dance/performance Mass in C B Minor or the Brown Table the same year (1972).
Homage Exhibition
In 2011, David Zwirner Gallery presented the exhibition 112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970–1974).
Notes
^Krenz, Marcel. Random Order. Flash Art. July–Sept. 2003: 67.