Profile

Founded in 1996 by New Yorker Christopher D’Amelio and Parisien Lucien Terras who met while working at the Paula Cooper Gallery, D’Amelio Terras is a small venue for contemporary art. Its roster spans a range of styles and media, from works on paper to ambitious installations. The gallery has shown American artist Glenn Ligon’s highly politicized works dealing with race in America—including his painting of Malcolm X as a rosy-cheeked clown and his angry text paintings stamped onto dark canvas. It has also shown the sculptural works of Damián Ortega and Cornelia Parker, who share a penchant for suspending objects in space: Ortega, a stunning, disassembled Volkswagen Beetle; Parker, hundreds of pieces of soil originally removed from beneath the Tower of Pisa to prevent it from falling. Polly Apfelbaum’s exhibits are also worth catching for her exuberant, color-rich “mosaic” installations made from strips of dyed velvet. Every January, the gallery puts on an exhibition that examines specific periods of post-war art. — Alex Mar