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Architects
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Location
97 Kenmare St, New York, NY 10012, United States -
Category
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Lead Architect
Jon Lott -
Design Team
Benjamin Halpern -
Area
1480.0 m2 -
Project Year
2016 -
Photographs
Text description provided by the architects. Storefront for Art and Architecture's narrow gallery space already takes advantage of its actively pedestrian neighborhood in SoHo, Manhattan. Its puzzle-piece-shaped facade openings (by Acconci/Holl 1993) connect this context with the gallery's interior.
Storefront for Storefront is a multi-staged installation that denies this connection (temporarily), before attempting to later heighten it. In the first stage, the existing Storefront is covered completely by what appears to be a common construction fence. It seems normal relative to the ubiquity of other construction fences throughout the city.
The gallery looks closed. The only tell is that each of the “required” apertures have reflective frames, giving passers-by a momentary confused and fragmented glimpse of the (now inner) gallery facade. The new wall, set several feet off the old, doubles the amount of gallery space out-and-onto the sidewalk for the exhibition Work-in-Progress.
Photographs of Naho Kabuto document the construction fence epidemic throughout the city. Over the course of the exhibition, the fence sheds its blunt green plywood face, entirely exposing its mirrored studs by the end. The result is a peculiar doubling of content and context.... a temporary Storefront for Storefront.
