As part of NADA’s New York Gallery Open, some of New York’s most celebrated galleries talk to Collecteurs about the current cultural landscape and why community is the key to the vitality of the overall arts ecosystem. Here we speak to the founders of Assembly Room: Paola Gallio, Natasha Becker, and Yulia Topchiy
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Collecteurs: When was the project space launched? How did it all start?
Natasha Becker: Opening the space happened quite suddenly and was a genuine carpe diem moment. But our desire to have a space dedicated to voicing our ideas, actualizing curatorial projects, and creating community, existed long before we opened. A year before, we started inviting other independent women curators to an informal monthly gathering. We would meet in our homes and at restaurants, talk shop, and support each other’s projects. Communing with each other on a regular basis definitely inspired us to take the next step.
Paola Gallio: We opened Assembly Room in September 2018 and I curated our first show, Soft Power with works by artist, Fawn Krieger. She is an artist I have known and worked with before coming to New York. I visited Fawn’s Studio during the summer and saw her “Experiments in Resistance” work: a series of sculptures in cement and clay that are reflections on the meaning of resistance as it occurs or happens between two materials, as an action between two bodies, and resistance as a political work in opposition to Trump’s election. Fawn’s work was able to poetically express our own intentions and sensibility towards social and political issues that we believe in and stand behind.
**C: What inspired you to start the space? What need were you trying to fulfill?
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Yulia Topchiy: The project emerged from the deep desire and need to give voice to independent women curators by supporting their vision, creative endeavors, and building a community around us. Natasha and I have been independent curators for over 6 years in New York City and we noticed the lack of support for independent women curators and limited physical spaces where one can curate shows, organize parallel programming, and build audience without paying a fee for the space. We wanted to fill the gap and create an environment where we provide support for independent women curators and help them realize their exhibitions, and further serve as a hub for workshops, apprenticeships, screenings, and performances in our space.
Natasha: What was important to us also, was the awakening that has taken place in the culture at large over the last two years; the groundswell of activism by women, the Me Too Movement, Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, the surge of women and L.G.B.T.Q candidates in an election year. It put a glaring spotlight on hypocrisy, misogyny, racism, greed and abuse of power. This situation makes it clear that we need more women-centered spaces, more collective organizing, more success on our own terms, and more equality all-round.
Paola: We want Assembly Room to be space for opportunities. Our door is open. It follows the commercial gallery model in its exhibition schedule but it operates and stands on its own with a specific mission, creating connections, supporting independent women curators.
Also, curatorial opportunities are not proportionate to the number of young students that graduates with degrees from curatorial programs each year. Being curators ourselves we are trying to take actions toward an ecosystem that is no longer sustainable, creating an inclusive place for dialogue among galleries, institutions, and community, and maintain the freedom to expand beyond any present boundaries.
C: Local support systems seem to be the key to success in the current cultural landscape. We’d love to know more about any current support systems you have in your neighborhood.
Yulia: In November we opened an exhibition, Looking into Spotless Rain, focusing on learning more about community in our immediate neighborhood and working with artists from Chinatown addressing the sense of community, gender issues, family structures, and personal oral history across the Asian diaspora. We are tremendously thankful for NYPL Seward branch and Manny Cantor Center | Educational Alliance for allowing us to create workshops for their community and engage with local residents further fostering the bond with the immediate community around us. We also have the support of the NADA community and we are very fortunate to be part of their upcoming March program. We are excited to become NADA members and be a part of an organization dedicated to supporting new voices in contemporary art.
C: As consumption of culture shifts more and more online. What creative ways are you exploring to continue to be relevant? What part does the community play in this?
Yulia: Assembly Room is on Artsy and we also use Instagram account to promote our exhibition programming, events, and workshops. We know that we can reach global audience this way and connect with independent women curators from all over the globe. For our open call we got applications from European, African, and Middle Eastern curators which was amazing to see how online presence helps us to reach our mission and connect with women sharing the same passions and curatorial independent voice. That being said, we always wanted to have a space and strongly believe that having a physical space is key to truly connect with your community through committing to monthly gatherings, sharing ideas, gathering feedback, and learning through others in the art industry. Maybe we are old fashioned this way but we love our space, our events, our gatherings. This is truly how we are building our curatorial tribe around us.
Paola: The Art World is shifting more and more into nomadic nature. Hundreds of fairs around the world make art dealers unstoppable to travel from New York to London to Dubai and to Hong Kong. Their online presence is their way to create a community that can travel with them. We believe that it’s necessary to have a home for ideas and stories, a safe place to create connections.
There is a need for a place to meet.
There is a need for dialogue.
We need a clan.
C: It’s becoming increasingly challenging to drive steady foot traffic into gallery spaces. What brings visitors?
Natasha: We get most of our foot traffic on popular Lower East Side gallery days (Saturday and Sunday) but it’s really our network of artists, curators, critics, collectors, and collaborators that bring visitors to the gallery. Also, we are fortunate to be part of a great community of galleries and our neighbors often send their visitors to check out the new kids on the block.
Yulia: Word of mouth, social media, critical attention also play important role in putting us on the map.
Paola: Also, the nature of our project generates traffic itself. We are open for collaboration and people want to come to visit the space, want to come to connect, and as a karmic response, our audience comes to us because it feels it can contribute to our mission.
It is very important to everyone, past and present, that this little space on Henry Street remain in the hands of creatives. Given the rapid gentrification of this most beautiful and diverse part of Chinatown, there is a real fear that the space could become yet another hip boutique or shop of some kind.
C: Tell us a little bit about your program. How are the exhibitions chosen?
Yulia: Due to serendipity of taking the space, we decided that we should start curating shows ourselves first starting with Paola, followed by Natasha and myself. Following our mission, we launched Open Call in the fall of 2018 and received some incredible proposals for shows in our space. As our audience grows locally and internationally, we get approached by other women curators with proposals and submissions. There is never a shortage of interest and we are so happy to see how quickly the word spreads out.
Natasha: Our program is for curators and for community. We choose exhibition based on proposals, the Open Call, conversations, and ideas for collaborations from curators who approach us. We encourage as many curators as possible, at any stage of their career, to join us and become part of our community. These interactions are at the heart of our program and really how exhibitions and special projects are chosen. The three of us discuss every proposal or idea together and we decide together. Sometimes, a curator has a brilliant idea and the artist is fantastic but it might be their first time curating an exhibition. So we also give feedback and offer our support and network to the curator and the artist to realize their dream project. Some proposals are mature and developed and the exhibition requires a minimum amount of effort on our part but we provide a space for it to exist. The point is, we choose our exhibitions and projects through conversation and involvement, from start to finish and beyond.
C: So many of the gallery spaces have interesting “past lives”. Does yours have one?
Yulia: We are still learning! In fact, Yuchen Chang, an artist from our open call proposal, shared with me that she used to take classes at the print shop in our sidewalk cellar space back in 2006 learning how to make Risograph prints, a popular screen print technique which was adapted in Japan for office use. Before Assembly Room, the space was occupied by SHRINE Gallery run by Scott Ogden who showed mostly outsider artists and now is sharing the space on East Broadway with Sargent Daughters. Prior to that, it was Pocket Utopia and run by artist/curator Austin Thomas. She passed it on to Scott and he passed it on to us! We are all friends and family and support each other along the way.
Natasha: It is very important to everyone, past and present, that this little space on Henry Street remain in the hands of creatives. Given the rapid gentrification of this most beautiful and diverse part of Chinatown, there is a real fear that the space could become yet another hip boutique or shop of some kind. So there’s this wonderful camaraderie about supporting this space as a gallery and as a creative community.