Workers are removing the plywood from the retail space on the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Avenue B... revealing the all-new storefront that will soon house the the Half Gallery...
In mid-December, the gallery announced it was relocating from the Upper East Side to 235 E. Fourth St.
The gallery, which has worked with Rene Ricard, Louise Bonnet and Nathaniel Mary Quinn, started on the Lower East Side in 2008 before heading north. Here's more via ARTnews:
Bill Powers, who founded Half Gallery, said that many of the artists the gallery has worked with “have a real connection to [the East Village] and that art scene,” adding that the move is “a little bit of a homecoming.”
With the Swiss Institute, the Brant Foundation, and other art institutions opening in the East Village recently, the neighborhood remains a hotspot for art, Powers said, adding, “We used to get a bigger crowd for openings when we were downtown because I think the gravity of the art world, spiritually, is downtown or in the outer boroughs.”
The space is expected to open soon featuring Tanya Merrill's first-ever solo exhibition.
The gallery takes the space of Tapanju Turntable (and Kate's Joint until 2012!).
The exterior is already a marked improved over the Turntable front, which had the warm, inviting look of a visitor's center at a North Korean prison.