Paul Kasmin reveals fourth gallery space designed by studioMDA
Standing just outside the shadows of Zaha Hadid’s futuristic condo building, 520 West 28th Street, and the High Line is the latest addition to New York’s Chelsea district – a newly built fourth gallery space for the art dealer Paul Kasmin. Designed by Markus Dochantschi of studioMDA, a longtime collaborator of Kasmin’s, the new gallery features a column-free exhibition space punctuated by 28 skylights. It's topped by a rooftop sculpture garden armed with a rotating exhibition programme that is also visible to the High Line’s six million visitors around the year.
As one of the neighbourhood’s few purpose-built gallery spaces, the newest Kasmin Gallery cuts a memorable figure. Cast out of concrete, the building makes a strong first impression with a white concrete façade that has been given the texture of brushed oak, and frames the expansive glass storefront. Inside, the 280 sq m space is capped off by a ceiling composed of 28 trapezoidal coffers, each individually installed with a skylight to ensure a flood of natural daylight into the gallery.
Not only does this waffle structure bring an innate rhythm to the space, it also provides flexibility for the exhibition area to be divided and partitioned as each show sees fit. Almost 7m-high walls also ensure that the gallery’s large-scale works are given the room that they need, which the opening exhibition of Walton Ford paintings make full use of.
The gallery’s rooftop fulfills a similar goal – to provide the best backdrop for Kasmin’s growing sculpture collection. The garden brings an additional 465 sq m of outdoor exhibition space to the table, with the embedded skylights providing illumination in the evening.
Located what seems to be just an arms’ length from the High Line, the gallery’s sculpture garden is an unexpected feature that continues the natural visual plane when viewed from the public space. It boasts a gently undulating topography, designed by Future Green, and has been filled with trees and foliage that will change with the seasons. Individual platforms have also been installed to optimise the sculptures’ stability and visibility. Three bronze sculptures by Joel Shapiro inaugurate the new garden.
‘The new gallery is the result of many years of discussion,’ says Kasmin. ‘Nearly all galleries in Chelsea are adapted industrial spaces so the real ambition has been to create a purpose-built exhibition space with the sole intention of showing art at its very best and taking shows outside [into the garden] off the gallery walls.’
INFORMATION
For more information visit the website of StudioMda
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Pei-Ru Keh is a former US Editor at Wallpaper*. Born and raised in Singapore, she has been a New Yorker since 2013. Pei-Ru held various titles at Wallpaper* between 2007 and 2023. She reports on design, tech, art, architecture, fashion, beauty and lifestyle happenings in the United States, both in print and digitally. Pei-Ru took a key role in championing diversity and representation within Wallpaper's content pillars, actively seeking out stories that reflect a wide range of perspectives. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children, and is currently learning how to drive.
-
The visual feast of the Sony World Photography Awards 2024 is revealed
The Sony World Photography Awards 2024 winners have been revealed – we celebrate the Architecture & Design category’s visual artists
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Don’t Move, Improve 2024: London’s bold, bright and boutique home renovations
Don’t Move, Improve 2024 reveals its shortlist, with 16 home designs competing for the top spot, to be announced in May
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Perfumer H has bottled the scent of dandelions blowing in the wind
Perfumer H has debuted a new fragrance for spring, called Dandelion. Lyn Harris tells Wallpaper* about the process of its creation
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
The Met’s ‘The Real Thing: Unpacking Product Photography’ dissects the avant-garde in early advertising
A new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York explores the role of product photography and advertising in shaping the visual language of modernism
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Tony Notarberardino’s Chelsea Hotel Portraits preserve a slice of bygone New York life
‘Tony Notarberardino: Chelsea Hotel Portraits, 1994-2010’, on show at New York’s ACA Galleries, is the photographer’s ode to the storied hotel he calls home and its eclectic clientele
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘LA Gun Club’: artist Jane Hilton on who’s shooting who
‘LA Gun Club’, an exhibition by Jane Hilton at New York’s Palo Gallery, explores American gun culture through a study of targets and shooters
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published
-
Todd Gray’s sculptural photography collages defy dimension, linearity and narrative
In Todd Gray’s New York exhibition, he revisits his 40-year archive, fragmented into elaborated frames that open doors for new readings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Frieze LA 2024 guide: the art, gossip and buzz
Our Frieze LA 2024 guide includes everything you need to know and see in and around the fair
By Renée Reizman Published
-
New York artist Christopher Astley showcases an alternative natural world
At Martos Gallery in New York, Christopher Astley’s paintings evoke an alternative natural world and the chaos of warfare (until 16 March 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published