No Longer Empty

NLE Lab: Gathering Place

25 West 8th Street

Description

Greenwich Village

Where now the tide of traffic beats / There was a maze of crooked streets; the noisy waves of enterprise / Swift-hurrying to their destinies / Swept past this island paradise: / Here life went to a gentler place / And dreams and dreamers found a place.  -Floyd Dell

No Longer Empty's new NLE Curatorial Lab program is pleased to announce an upcoming contemporary art exhibition at 24 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. Selected artists fill this formerly-vacant storefront with site-specific works that explore the street and neighborhood's unique history of commerce and culture, and envision 8th Street's rebirth as a mixed-use destination corridor, engaging the community in critical dialogue around its future.

The artists in Gathering Place respond to residents' expressed desire for new spaces on West 8th Street and in the surrounding neighborhood that provide not only interesting dining and shopping experiences, but also communal and cultural experiences that call out to the area's history.

Artworks include installations in different media that resurrect specific aspects of the area's past or even incorporate found materials from the neighborhood. Participatory art projects will gather visitors' observations and opinions about this site and its ideal future development. Collected responses will be shared through the exhibition's run. 

ARTISTS FEATURED  Luisa Caldwell / Rebecca Hackemann / Kristen Jones and Andrew Ginzel / Gwyneth Leech / Jennifer Maravillas / Simonetta Moro / Eleanor Ray / Ira Sachs / Micki Watanabe Spiller / Gail Thacker / Seldon Yuan

Curated by Jessica Wallen and Katherine Gressel

 

PROGRAMMING: 

Cup-Drawing with Gwyneth Leech

Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays, 1-4pm, FREE

Don’t throw those take-out coffee cups away—turn them into art! Cupcycling artist

Gwyneth Leech will be on site to draw on cups with visitors of all ages, alongside her cup

art installation. There will be empty cups for you to use, or bring your own!

 

Story Time with Micki Wantanabe Spiller

Sundays: March 3rd , 10th, and 17th, 1pm, FREE

Children ages pre-K-10 can experience the wonder of books and the joy of reading. Spiller

will introduce a selection of children’s books that relate to Greenwich Village, and a craft

project with Village-specific coloring book pages and a competition to design your own!

 

Village Photo Scavenger Hunt with Lomography

Sunday, March 17th 2-4pm, $10

The Lomography studio on West 8th Street and NLE Lab curators will co-lead a scavenger

hunt for all ages on and around 8th Street. Learn how to use Lomography’s unique film

cameras to explore the neighborhood’s rich history of commerce and culture.

 

CURATORS 

Katherine Gressel is a New York-based artist, curator and writer focused on site-specific art. She received her BA in art from Yale and MA in arts administration from Columbia University. She has worked as project director and curator for the FIGMENT Sculpture Garden on Governors Island and her original annual exhibition series, Brooklyn Utopias, engaging local social and environmental issues. She currently serves as Programs Manager at Smack Mellon gallery.

Jessica Wallen is a New York-based arts facilitator, curator, and writer. Before moving to the East Coast to study at New York University in 2010, she produced exhibitions in San Francisco and Berlin while devoting her time to advisory board duties for non-profit alternative art spaces. She currently works as a consultant for MTA Arts for Transit and Urban Design.

 

Learn more about the NLE Curatorial Lab.

Program image by Jennifer Marvavillas 

This program is supported by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and is a collaboration with Buchbinder & Warren and Village Alliance.