Park Place Gallery
Encyclopedia
Park Place Gallery was a contemporary art gallery located in SoHo
in Lower Manhattan
, New York City
, USA, during the mid to late 1960s. Park Place Gallery was located at 542 West Broadway, on what is now LaGuardia Place just north of Houston Street in the neighborhood that is now called "SoHo
". It is thought of as being the first gallery of the 1960s in that area of Lower Manhattan.
Originally opened as a cooperative gallery in 1963 near Park Place in Lower Manhattan, in 1965 it moved to a new and larger location at 542 West Broadway. The gallery was a large open exhibition space with an office and second showing space in the back. In general there were two-person exhibitions each featuring a painter and a sculptor in the larger front room, and a small selection of artists work in the back room. The first director of Park Place Gallery was John Gibson who later opened his own gallery in the early 1970s. He was succeeded by Paula Cooper who after Park Place Gallery closed in the late 1960s opened the Paula Cooper Gallery
in SoHo. She became a pioneer of the contemporary art scene and a forerunner of the population explosion of art galleries in New York City
during the 1970s.
, Hard-edge painting
, Op Art
, paradoxical geometric objects, sculpture, and experimental art. Many of the sculptors, painters and other artists who exhibited in Park Place Gallery were interested in cutting edge architecture
, electronic music
, and minimal art. The gallery also exhibited the works of lesser known young and older artists, often for the first time.
Some of the artists that were exhibited at the Park Place Gallery included Mark di Suvero
, Leo Valledor
, Peter Forakis
http://www.togonongallery.com/artists/artists_peterforakis.html(who lives in Petaluma, CA), Dean Fleming, Anthony Magar, Forrest (Frosty) Myers, Ed Ruda, Robert Grosvenor, Tamara Melcher, David Novros, Gay Glading, Jon Baldwin, and several others. Some of the artists that were invited to show, or play concerts or read poetry at the gallery included Ronald Bladen, Sol LeWitt
, Eva Hesse
, Al Held
, Sylvia Stone, Robert Smithson
, Steve Reich
, Phillip Glass, Brice Marden
, Charles Ginnever
, Charles Ross
, Robert Morris (artist)
, Kenneth Snelson
, Robert Swain, Carlos Villa, Mario Yrissary, Peter Reginato
, Ronnie Landfield
, Carl Andre
, Jake Berthot, David R. Prentice
, Mac Wells, Bob Neuwirth
, Joan Jonas
, and dozens of young and unknown painters, sculptors, conceptual artists, performance artists and composers among others.
. Populating lofts and warehouse buildings - many of which had been abandoned in what used to be known as "Hells Hundred Acres." Along lower Broadway and the many side streets, serious artists from all over the country began to live in large and inexpensive loft studios. The proximity of artists studio's began to entice art dealers and gallery owners to open new gallery spaces nearby to where the artists were living and where their studio's were. By 1966, SoHo
began to become a growing artist community. Park Place Gallery became a mecca and meeting ground for artists young and old. Especially crowded and popular were the special music performances and other special programs hosted by the gallery. The openings and accompanied artist parties were always crowded affairs. During the mid to late 1960s and the early 1970s Max's Kansas City
on Park Avenue South between 17th and 18th Streets and the St. Adrian's bar on lower Broadway became the favorite hangouts for most of the young artists, writers, poets, and creative people on the scene in downtown Manhattan.
, Earth Art, Lyrical Abstraction
, Minimal Art, Postminimalism
, Performance art
, and the continuation of Abstract expressionism
, Color field
painting, Op Art
and Pop Art
. A significant development in the New York art world was the birth of the gallery scene in SoHo. It signaled the enormous financial growth of the art world. Suddenly there were waves of new galleries and collectors. The appetite for the acquisition of the new was voracious. For a short time the artist's life was no longer based on the idea of suffering and struggle. The baby boom generation ushered in a new phenomenon of instant success, driven by the expanding demand for art in the galleries.
In New York City during the 1950s, the avant-garde
was a blend of hot and cool art. The Tenth Street cooperative galleries
were formed mostly by young artists of both types seeking a place to show their work. The cooperative galleries served as an alternative to the conservative 57th Street and uptown Madison Avenue galleries that dominated the art scene.
During the early to mid-1960s this group of young artists that formed the Park Place Gallery revolutionized what was possible for young artists. By pioneering SoHo
, the Park Place Gallery showed many important young artists often for the first time, who went on to become famous and successful. The original members: Mark di Suvero
, Frosty Myers, Robert Grosvenor, Ed Ruda, Dean Fleming, Leo Valledor
, Peter Forakis
, Tamara Melcher, Tony Magar and later David Novros, John Baldwin and Gay Glading were all cutting edge young artists. Attracting funding from the Lannan Foundation and private collectors and with John Gibson and later Paula Cooper as directors, Park Place became a lightning rod of attention for the downtown art scene. With experimental ideas and invitational exhibitions, Park Place Gallery served as a forum for both hot and cool art. It became a center for the downtown avant-garde
as well, with weekly poetry readings, concerts by new electronic composers, and openings that always drew large crowds of young artists.
at the University of Texas at Austin
presented an exhibition entitled: Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery Group in 1960s New York curated by Linda Dalrymple Henderson. The exhibition ran from September 28, 2008 – January 18, 2009.
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
in Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, USA, during the mid to late 1960s. Park Place Gallery was located at 542 West Broadway, on what is now LaGuardia Place just north of Houston Street in the neighborhood that is now called "SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
". It is thought of as being the first gallery of the 1960s in that area of Lower Manhattan.
Originally opened as a cooperative gallery in 1963 near Park Place in Lower Manhattan, in 1965 it moved to a new and larger location at 542 West Broadway. The gallery was a large open exhibition space with an office and second showing space in the back. In general there were two-person exhibitions each featuring a painter and a sculptor in the larger front room, and a small selection of artists work in the back room. The first director of Park Place Gallery was John Gibson who later opened his own gallery in the early 1970s. He was succeeded by Paula Cooper who after Park Place Gallery closed in the late 1960s opened the Paula Cooper Gallery
Paula Cooper Gallery
The Paula Cooper Gallery is an art gallery in New York City founded in 1968.The gallery is primarily known for the Minimalist and Conceptual artists it has represented and whose careers it helped launch. Such artists include: Carl Andre, Jennifer Bartlett, Lynda Benglis, Mark di Suvero, Donald...
in SoHo. She became a pioneer of the contemporary art scene and a forerunner of the population explosion of art galleries in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during the 1970s.
The gallery
The gallery showcased works by younger, less established artists with an emphasis on Geometric abstraction, shaped canvasShaped canvas
Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
, Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, Op Art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
, paradoxical geometric objects, sculpture, and experimental art. Many of the sculptors, painters and other artists who exhibited in Park Place Gallery were interested in cutting edge architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, and minimal art. The gallery also exhibited the works of lesser known young and older artists, often for the first time.
Some of the artists that were exhibited at the Park Place Gallery included Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
, Leo Valledor
Leo Valledor
Leo Valledor was a Filipino-American painter who pioneered the Hard-edge painting style. During the 1960s he was a member of the Park Place Gallery in Soho, New York, which exhibited many influential and significant artists of the period. He exhibited in several prominent galleries and museums,...
, Peter Forakis
Peter Forakis
Peter Forakis was an American artist known as an abstract geometric sculptor. The son of a Greek immigrant, he grew up on the Wyoming prairie until the age of 10 when his family moved to Oakland, California. Eventually they settled in Modesto, California...
http://www.togonongallery.com/artists/artists_peterforakis.html(who lives in Petaluma, CA), Dean Fleming, Anthony Magar, Forrest (Frosty) Myers, Ed Ruda, Robert Grosvenor, Tamara Melcher, David Novros, Gay Glading, Jon Baldwin, and several others. Some of the artists that were invited to show, or play concerts or read poetry at the gallery included Ronald Bladen, Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
, Al Held
Al Held
Al Held was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings.-Background and education:...
, Sylvia Stone, Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....
, Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, Phillip Glass, Brice Marden
Brice Marden
Brice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
, Charles Ginnever
Charles Ginnever
Charles Ginnever is an American sculptor. He was born in San Mateo, California, in 1931. In 1957, he received his BA from the San Francisco Art Institute and received his MFA from Cornell University in 1959. He started working with canvas and steel scraps painted with bright patterns...
, Charles Ross
Charles Ross (artist)
Charles Ross , is an American sculptor and earthwork artist. He was a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow.He graduated from University of California, Berkeley, with a B.A., and M.A. in Sculpture in 1962....
, Robert Morris (artist)
Robert Morris (artist)
Robert Morris is an American sculptor, conceptual artist and writer. He is regarded as one of the most prominent theorists of Minimalism along with Donald Judd but he has also made important contributions to the development of performance art, land art, the Process Art movement and installation...
, Kenneth Snelson
Kenneth Snelson
Kenneth Snelson is a contemporary sculptor and photographer. His sculptural works are composed of flexible and rigid components arranged according to the idea of 'tensegrity', although Snelson does not use the term....
, Robert Swain, Carlos Villa, Mario Yrissary, Peter Reginato
Peter Reginato
Peter Reginato , is an American abstract sculptor.Reginato was born in Dallas, Texas, but grew up in the hills outside Oakland, California and he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. He began making abstract sculpture in 1965 and moved to New York City in 1966 to pursue his career as a sculptor...
, Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
, Carl Andre
Carl Andre
Carl Andre is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American...
, Jake Berthot, David R. Prentice
David R. Prentice
David R. Prentice is an American artist.Prentice was born in Hartford, Connecticut and studied at the Art School of the University of Hartford from 1962 to 1964, after which he worked as a studio assistant to Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Alexander Liberman and Malcolm...
, Mac Wells, Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. A mainstay of the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk scene, he subsequently became a friend and associate of Bob Dylan alongside whom he appears in D.A...
, Joan Jonas
Joan Jonas
Born in 1936 in New York City, Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video and performance art and one of the most important female artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.She began her career in New York City as a sculptor...
, and dozens of young and unknown painters, sculptors, conceptual artists, performance artists and composers among others.
The scene
In the early 1960s, artists from all over the country flooded into Lower ManhattanLower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
. Populating lofts and warehouse buildings - many of which had been abandoned in what used to be known as "Hells Hundred Acres." Along lower Broadway and the many side streets, serious artists from all over the country began to live in large and inexpensive loft studios. The proximity of artists studio's began to entice art dealers and gallery owners to open new gallery spaces nearby to where the artists were living and where their studio's were. By 1966, SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
began to become a growing artist community. Park Place Gallery became a mecca and meeting ground for artists young and old. Especially crowded and popular were the special music performances and other special programs hosted by the gallery. The openings and accompanied artist parties were always crowded affairs. During the mid to late 1960s and the early 1970s Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South, in New York City, which was a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s.-Origin of name:...
on Park Avenue South between 17th and 18th Streets and the St. Adrian's bar on lower Broadway became the favorite hangouts for most of the young artists, writers, poets, and creative people on the scene in downtown Manhattan.
The avant-garde
In the late 1960s and early 1970s art shattered into many directions: Conceptual ArtConceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
, Earth Art, Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
, Minimal Art, Postminimalism
Postminimalism
Postminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
, Performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, and the continuation of Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, Color field
Color Field
Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting, Op Art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
and Pop Art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
. A significant development in the New York art world was the birth of the gallery scene in SoHo. It signaled the enormous financial growth of the art world. Suddenly there were waves of new galleries and collectors. The appetite for the acquisition of the new was voracious. For a short time the artist's life was no longer based on the idea of suffering and struggle. The baby boom generation ushered in a new phenomenon of instant success, driven by the expanding demand for art in the galleries.
In New York City during the 1950s, the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
was a blend of hot and cool art. The Tenth Street cooperative galleries
Tenth street galleries
The Tenth Street galleries was a collective term for the co-operative galleries that operated mainly in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The galleries were artist run and generally operated on very low budgets, often without any staff. Some artists became members...
were formed mostly by young artists of both types seeking a place to show their work. The cooperative galleries served as an alternative to the conservative 57th Street and uptown Madison Avenue galleries that dominated the art scene.
During the early to mid-1960s this group of young artists that formed the Park Place Gallery revolutionized what was possible for young artists. By pioneering SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
, the Park Place Gallery showed many important young artists often for the first time, who went on to become famous and successful. The original members: Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
, Frosty Myers, Robert Grosvenor, Ed Ruda, Dean Fleming, Leo Valledor
Leo Valledor
Leo Valledor was a Filipino-American painter who pioneered the Hard-edge painting style. During the 1960s he was a member of the Park Place Gallery in Soho, New York, which exhibited many influential and significant artists of the period. He exhibited in several prominent galleries and museums,...
, Peter Forakis
Peter Forakis
Peter Forakis was an American artist known as an abstract geometric sculptor. The son of a Greek immigrant, he grew up on the Wyoming prairie until the age of 10 when his family moved to Oakland, California. Eventually they settled in Modesto, California...
, Tamara Melcher, Tony Magar and later David Novros, John Baldwin and Gay Glading were all cutting edge young artists. Attracting funding from the Lannan Foundation and private collectors and with John Gibson and later Paula Cooper as directors, Park Place became a lightning rod of attention for the downtown art scene. With experimental ideas and invitational exhibitions, Park Place Gallery served as a forum for both hot and cool art. It became a center for the downtown avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
as well, with weekly poetry readings, concerts by new electronic composers, and openings that always drew large crowds of young artists.
2008
In September 2008 the Blanton Museum of ArtBlanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is the art museum and research center of the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly under the College of Fine Arts, the museum director now reports to the University's...
at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
presented an exhibition entitled: Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery Group in 1960s New York curated by Linda Dalrymple Henderson. The exhibition ran from September 28, 2008 – January 18, 2009.
Selected sources
- Blanton Museum of Art: American Art Since 1900 / editors, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi and Kelly Baum, published by the University of Texas at Austin, 2006, catalog of the collection ISBN 0-9771453-1-X.
- Blanton Museum catalog of the collection: (above) Linda Dalrymple Henderson, Dean Fleming, Ed Ruda, and the Park Place Gallery: Spatial Complexity and the "Fourth Dimension" in 1960s New York pp. 379–389.
- Lyrical Abstraction, online essay by Ronnie Landfield, http://www.abstract-art.com/abstraction/l5_wordings_fldr/l1_lyr_abst_proposal.html
See also
- Tenth street galleriesTenth street galleriesThe Tenth Street galleries was a collective term for the co-operative galleries that operated mainly in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The galleries were artist run and generally operated on very low budgets, often without any staff. Some artists became members...
- Minimal art
- PostminimalismPostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
- Lyrical AbstractionLyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
- shaped canvasShaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
- Hard-edge paintingHard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
- Impossible objectImpossible objectAn impossible object is a type of optical illusion consisting of a two-dimensional figure which is instantly and subconsciously interpreted by the visual system as representing a projection of a three-dimensional object although it is not actually possible for such an object to exist An impossible...
- truncated dodecahedronTruncated dodecahedronIn geometry, the truncated dodecahedron is an Archimedean solid. It has 12 regular decagonal faces, 20 regular triangular faces, 60 vertices and 90 edges.- Geometric relations :...
- polyhedronPolyhedronIn elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...
External links
- Leo Valledor estate
- Robert Smithson comments
- Ronnie Landfield comments
- Archives of American Art Accessed online July 24, 2007
- NYTimes obituary of Peter Forakis