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Ensemble, a new Tribeca gallery located on the 19th floor of a Broadway building, opens its doors this week with the mission of testing out a collaborative sustainability model. The collector couple John Dennehy and Kirby Voigtman initiated the idea to explore an inclusive and evolving exhibition programme, and invited the artist Connor McNicholas and the gallerist Petra Bibeau to join the venture. As the vulnerability of mid-size galleries continues, the founders of Ensemble have invested in an open-ended and pliable business format.
“We know, as collectors, that acquisitions can feel transactional, and here, we wanted to build a learning environment where visitors can take their time with the work, and artists can have exposure to new ways of showing,” Voigtman says. The inaugural group show, Plus One, which opens tomorrow, is the first fruit of this experimental ambition. McNicholas invited Quay Quinn Wolf, who tapped K.R.M. Mooney (who is in the current Whitney Biennial) to be featured, followed by Mooney’s invitation to include SoiL Thornton. Then, Thornton brought in Park McArthur, who extended an invite to Jason Hirata. The domino-effect curation focuses on “the relationships, respect and the communication between its artists”, according to McNicholas.
In 2025, the gallery will launch its main programming format: hosting (mainly European) galleries for one-off exhibitions. “We are hoping to bring back a non-representative model, because visitors will never know what to expect to see here,” says Bibeau, a founding partner at the neighbouring gallery Bibeau Krueger. She believes that this kinetic energy will “invigorate the experience of visiting a gallery”.
Similar collaborative-hosting formats, such as Condo or Echo in Cologne, have been helping galleries expand their global presence. With Ensemble, the founders aim to offer a year-round venue for galleries interested in crossing over the pond without the risks of a major expansion. “It is clear that reaching a certain level of stability is harder for mid-level galleries,” Bibeau says, “and when they do, emerging artists are left out.”
For McNicholas, staying “hybrid and freeform” will help programming stay responsive to artists’ needs, as “the culture moves extremely quickly and raises different concerns in real time”. As the rapidly expanding list of art fairs affects the quality of work produced and exhibited, Ensemble’s format, McNicholas believes, “will give artists more authority over what they show and help them make sincere decisions”.
Following the inaugural show, Ensemble will expand the five-artist chain to an exhibition with ten artists, including David Johnson, in the summer with certain thematic connections to its precedent. An all-female group show will open during Armory Week in September, followed by a three-artist project curated by Adriana Blidaru in November. In the long run, the goal is to maintain relationships with the galleries Ensemble hosts. “We have to find other ways to have them return, either through curating or solo shows, at some point,” McNicholas says.
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