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White Columns is New York City’s oldest alternative
non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
art space. 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 Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...
neighborhood of New York City by Jeffrey Lew and
Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Matta-Clark (born Gordon Roberto Matta-Echaurren; June 22, 1943 – August 27, 1978) was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art. ...
. It was then known as 112 Workshop/112 Greene Street. In 1979 it relocated to
Spring Street Spring Street may refer to: * Spring Street (Los Angeles), USA * Spring Street (Manhattan), New York City, USA * Spring Street, Melbourne, Australia * Spring Street, Singapore * Spring St (website), a US based lifestyle website Subway and trolle ...
, in
Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...
, 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 Matthew Higgs (born 1964) is an English artist, curator, writer and publisher. His contribution to UK contemporary art has included the creation of ''Imprint 93'', a series of artists’ editions featuring the work of artists such as Martin Creed ...
. In 1991 it moved to
Christopher Street Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue. It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher St ...
in
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
. In 1998, White Columns moved to its present location on the border of Greenwich Village and the
Meatpacking District The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District along ...
, initiated by then-director Ha, who inaugurated the space with the exhibition "Inventory". Since being founded, White Columns has supported and provided exposure to hundreds of artists including
Alice Aycock Alice Aycock (born November 20, 1946) is an American sculptor and installation artist. She was an early artist in the land art movement in the 1970s, and has created many large-scale metal sculptures around the world. Aycock's drawings and sculp ...
,
Stephen Laub Stephen Laub (born 1945) is an American artist who works in performance, video, and sculpture. Education Laub received both his undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of California, Berkeley studying under artists such as Peter V ...
,
Willoughby Sharp Willoughby Sharp (January 23, 1936 – December 17, 2008) was an American artist, independent curator, independent publisher (he was co-founder and co-editor of Avalanche Magazine with Liza Béar), gallerist, teacher, author, and telecom activist ...
,
Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whil ...
,
Sonic Youth Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...
,
Andres Serrano Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His '' Piss Christ'' (1987) is a red-tinged photograph of a ...
,
Lorna Simpson Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as ''Guarded Conditions'' and ''Square Deal''. Simpson is most well-known for her work in c ...
,
John Currin John Currin (born 1962) is an American painter based in New York City. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of in ...
,
Cady Noland Cady Noland (born 1956) is an American postmodern conceptual sculptor and an internationally exhibited installation artist whose work deals with the failed promise of the American Dream and the divide between fame and anonymity, among other the ...
, Tyler Turkle,
Sarah Sze Sarah Sze (; born 1969) is an American artist widely recognized for challenging the boundaries of painting, installation, and architecture. Sze's sculptural practice ranges from slight gestures discovered in hidden spaces to expansive installati ...
,
Lutz Bacher Lutz Bacher (21 September 1943 – 14 May 2019) was an artist closely associated with Berkeley, California since the 1970s, and who lived and worked in New York City from 2013 until her death The name Lutz Bacher was a pseudonym, and the artist did ...
and others. To this day, White Columns continues its support for artists with an ongoing program of exhibitions and to hundreds of other artists through their online Artist Registry.


112 Workshop

From 1970 to 1980 112 Workshop was an Artists-run studio and exhibition space that helped to define Minimal
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
and
Post-conceptual art Post-conceptual, postconceptual, post-conceptualism or postconceptualism is an art theory that builds upon the legacy of conceptual art in contemporary art, where the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work takes some precedence over traditional ...
practice in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It was founded by Jeffrey Lew and
Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Matta-Clark (born Gordon Roberto Matta-Echaurren; June 22, 1943 – August 27, 1978) was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art. ...
at 112 Greene Street in
Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...
. The space contributed to the development of
Conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
and
Postmodern dance Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form that came into popularity in the early 1960s. While the term "postmodern" took on a different meaning when used to describe dance, the dance form did take inspiration from the ideologies of th ...
of the early 1970s and
Post-conceptual art Post-conceptual, postconceptual, post-conceptualism or postconceptualism is an art theory that builds upon the legacy of conceptual art in contemporary art, where the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work takes some precedence over traditional ...
in the late-1970s. In 1979 it relocated to
Spring Street Spring Street may refer to: * Spring Street (Los Angeles), USA * Spring Street (Manhattan), New York City, USA * Spring Street, Melbourne, Australia * Spring Street, Singapore * Spring St (website), a US based lifestyle website Subway and trolle ...
, and was renamed White Columns.


Participating artists

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. Vito Acconci locked himself in a tiny room with a
fighting cock A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or ente ...
in a piece he called ''Combination'' (1971).
112 Greene Street: The Soho that Used to Be, at
Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking ...
Following their first New York performance at the
Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...
Gallery, Richard Landry and Musicians presented five concerts at 112 in March of 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 David Zwirner Gallery is an American contemporary art gallery owned by David Zwirner. It has four gallery spaces in New York City and one each in London, Hong Kong, and Paris. History The Zwirner Gallery opened in 1993 on the ground floor of ...
presented the exhibition ''112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970–1974)''.


Notes


References

* Jessamyn Fiore (ed.), ''112 Greene Street: The Early Years, 1970–1974'', Radius Books, 2012 * Krenz, Marcel. ''Random Order''. Flash Art. July–Sept. 2003: 67–69. * Brenson, Michael. Structures,' Exhibition at White Columns.'' The New York Times. December 13, 1985 * Robyn Brentano and Mark Savitt (eds.), ''112 Workshop/112 Greene Street: History, Artists & Artwork'', New York University Press, 1981 Contemporary art galleries in the United States 1970 establishments in New York (state) Art museums and galleries in Manhattan Art galleries established in 1970 SoHo, Manhattan


Discography

* '' Noise Festival Tape'' (1982) TSoWC White Columns


Notes


References

* Krenz, Marcel. “Random Order.” Flash Art. July–Sept. 2003: 67–69.
White Columns History
* Brenson, Michael. "'Structures,' Exhibition at White Columns." The New York Times. December 13, 1985


External links


White Columns
{{Coord, 40, 44, 20, N, 74, 0, 31, W, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title Contemporary art galleries in the United States 1970 establishments in New York (state) Art museums and galleries in Manhattan Art galleries established in 1970 Greenwich Village