Profile

When Gavin Brown left London to open up a gallery in the Meatpacking district, he brought a very East-End sensibility with him: Don’t try too hard, and they will love you. Brown made his small, exposed space into an informal and very keyed-in spot for young artists and, in his coup de grace, attached a bar to the brick-and-sheetrock space, begging the question, what goes better together than art and alcohol? This is where Elizabeth Peyton first garnered attention for her slack paintings of Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith and her rotating cast of crushes with aristocratic cheekbones. And when “Sensation” was causing a ruckus in Brooklyn—with works such as painter Chris Ofili’s Virgin Mary decorated in elephant dung—Brown was showing Chris Ofili’s new work. It’s also the birthplace of godfathers of electroclash and onetime performance art troupe, Fischerspooner. Sick of the scene, Brown recently gave over the entire space to the drinking hole—which now hosts more performance art—and moved the gallery to a lonely spot on Greenwich St. — Alex Mar