Emerging-Art Mini-Mall
Chelsea expands north.
The man on the street will soon have better access to the exciting and ever more expensive emerging-artists market, as several members of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) have a deal in the works to colonize West 27th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, a block north of the current northern border of big-time, big-box Chelsea. The group is said to include a group of cutting-edge galleries keen to maximize foot traffic: Clementine Gallery (currently on a second floor elsewhere in Chelsea), John Connelly (tenth floor), Derek Eller (second), Foxy Production (sixth), and Wallspace (second), all of which would be moving into prized street-level spaces. nada would also have its headquarters in the complex. If it works out, construction could begin this fall. “It’s the next generation of 24th Street dealers,” says one of the gallerists involved (who prefers to remain anonymous until the lease is signed), referring to the millionaires’ row established when Larry Gagosian, Barbara Gladstone, Metro Pictures, and Andrea Rosen relocated en masse from Soho about five years ago.
—Karen Rosenberg