Closing party at 55 Gansevoort
With the end of August comes that sudden need for change. We urge to turn that hot air into breeze, get back to work or class, exchange the crop top for a blazer and use a bunch of trite metaphors to express our feelings of endings and beginnings. This week the art world welcomed a new gallery, bid farewell to a quirky staple of the scene, and let the changing of seasons stand for a whole lot more.Three flights up in a studio building in the strangely barron neighborhood on the cusp of Soho and Tribeca, a Chicago gallery known for it's plucky curation and eccentric artists celebrated its move to New York City. Queer Thoughts gallery, or QT, used to reside in the apartment of directors Luis Miguel Bendaña and Sam Lipp, is used to packing punch into a small space. Their first show, titled The End of Violent Crime, explores the possibility of a world without violence with a collection of mostly violent video, sound, sculpture, photography and collage. On each end of the tiny room, speakers projected two songs, "The Most Wanted Song" and "The Most Unwanted Song," a sound installation by Komar & Melamid with neuroscientist Dave Soldier that takes statistics of the population's favorite and least favorite sounds and compiles them into one song to represent. Darja Bajagić's small collaged images of horror movie proportions (some even using fake blood) dressed the walls while Patricia L. Boyd's video of a man's hands disabling car parts. With so many people, unwanted sounds and blood splatters, it was an overwhelming introduction for the transplant gallery, but hopefully a wanted new voice in the art world.
With every opening comes a closing, and unfortunately, with the takeover of a new Restoration Hardware coming to the Meatpacking district, it was the end of a surprisingly long run for the endearingly tiny vestibule turned gallery 55 Gansevoort. Creator Ellie Rines welcomed friends, artists, lovers, and onlookers to celebrate the life of the quirky space around a installation of large rotating wooden sculpture by artist Rachel Foullon. An ice cream truck, serving drippy cones to the masses, blasted a sad song mix by Rines that had the crowd singing together. People spilled onto the cobblestone street, confusing the hords of tourists in a neighborhood that was always a strange fit for such a delightfully strange space. It won't be the end of 55 Gansevoort, which will eventually find a new home but keep its name, but the night signified a change we all knew was coming. But as the seasons change and the leaves turn and we all get ready for the tidal wave of September openings, we try to appreciate the things we have while we have them, and not sing "Turn, Turn, Turn" too loudly under our breaths.