Can a New Art Space Refresh a Tired City Center?


This article is part of our latest article Special section on museumsfocusing on new artists, new audiences, and new ways of thinking about exhibitions.


MONTICELLO, NY — Like its sister towns nestled in the nearby Catskill Mountains, signs are everywhere that the cultural and economic heyday of this area of ​​Sullivan County is deep in the past.

Amid the nods of contemporary life such as downtown barbers, a sports bar, a pizza parlor, and other casual dining venues, shop windows in 1800s buildings stand empty and hotels from the 1950s borscht-belt boom are still packed. Many of the buildings have been declared fire hazards.

But it could be a step towards rejuvenation when a new museum featuring 21st-century international artists opens on Broadway, the city’s main street, on May 21.

“Museums are incredibly good anchors for the revitalization of main streets,” said John Conway, 69, the county’s official historian, who compared the town’s Broadway to a disenchanted smile. “There are gaps everywhere,” he said. “I don’t want to be too negative, but this is really a disaster zone. It was bad for decades.” However, he added, “it has the potential to be great again.”

The new nonprofit art space is the latest project from the prolific Mexican-born Brooklyn-based artist. Bosco Sodi. The name of the new art space is Assembly. To create from what was once a Buick dealer, Mr. Sodi, Mexican architect Alberto Kalach to carve galleries out of the yellow-brick, hangar-style building.

Assembly’s inaugural exhibition is appropriately dedicated to cultural, social and economic exchange; a long-term artistic preoccupation that manifests itself in the artist’s new solo exhibition “Around Things Around”, which is seen as an official side exhibition of the Venice Biennale. (Mr Sodi also has an ongoing exhibition of 30 sculptures. Dallas Museum of Art until 10 July.)

“I truly believe in the exchange of knowledge, ideas and knowledge between people,” said Mr. Sodi as he toured the 23,000 square feet recently. “This is what evolves societies.”

Mr. Sodi chose the name Assembly to highlight his hope that this will become a meeting place and a forum for Monticello. The Assembly will host year-round exhibitions and offer educational and community programs. It also plans to add a restaurant. “To be a destination, you need a place to eat,” he said with a smile.

Mr. Sodi was there in the fall of 2020 when he and his designer wife celebrated their 50th birthday in Forestburgh, NY. Lucia Corridor, It’s a rural retreat with three teenagers and a dog, goat, and chicken zoo, both living in Brooklyn’s Red Hook.

Mr. Sodi’s preoccupation with “change” connects his major projects this spring with the famous arts centre. casa wabi On the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Established in 2014, bearing the name The Japanese concept of embracing the ephemeral and imperfect and designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao AndoCasa Wabi functions as a foundation with its art studios, exhibition space and seating program. Under the auspices of Casa Wabi, Mr. Sodi also runs an exhibition space. Santa Maria an arts residency program in Mexico City and called Casa Nano in Tokyo.

Assembly’s inaugural exhibition was organized by Dakin Hart, senior curator of the Noguchi Museum in Queens, who worked with Daniela Ferretti to curate Mr. Sodi’s exhibition in Venice. Palazzo Vendramin Grimani on the Grand Canal. The work on display in Venice aims to explore the city’s unique history as a hub for global cultural and commercial exchanges.

The first exhibition of the new museum in Monticello is about exchange, albeit more indirectly: All artworks are liberated from the isolation of their storage boxes and reentered the world where they can play a role in the marketplace of ideas. . “If someone like me believes in the power of art, it’s very sad to have these powerful objects in a box,” Sodi said. The title of the exhibition is aptly “Not Stored”.

The organization concept of the show aims to solve a problem that plagues artists, especially those who make large-scale works. As Mr. Hart says, “Many things come back to you in trunks,” piled up in every corner of the studio. ”

Mr. Sodi’s own work will be displayed in the downstairs exhibition space, with some mixed media work in the same vein as those in Venice, and a series on commercial burlap sacks used to carry Mexican dried chiles.

There will also be statues: some clay; others are ceramic, glazed volcanic rock; and one is a mini version of “Muro,” one of Mr. Sodi’s best-known public art works, in which he creates a 6-foot-high, 26-foot-tall wall of Mexican clay in Washington Square Park in Manhattan – and then the public uses it. brick by brick – “Build This Wall!” in the first year of Donald J. Trump’s presidency. It had become an anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican slogan at rallies around the country.

This selection of Mr. Sodi’s work will be set against painted rocks. Izumi Kato and large vessels by the famous ceramics master Shiro Tsujimura. Mr. Sodi sees both artists, mostly living in Japan, as close friends and important influences on his work.

There will be two additional different shows spread throughout the vintage car showroom. More comprehensive is a survey of contemporary Mexican sculpture by Mr. Sodi and 16 artists. Jose Davila, Gabriela Galvan, Ale de la Puente, Tania CandianiRepresenting Mexico at the 2015 Venice Biennale; and Mario NavarroWho is the project manager of Mr. Sodi’s studio and the new museum?

Three large-scale works from one of Mr. Sodi’s close friends, born in Switzerland and based in Harlem, will also be on display. Ugo Rondinone.

“Bosco thinks everything in terms of people.” said Mr. Hart. “This first exhibition is a great social map of Bosco’s artistic life because it reflects people from Mexico, Japan and New York who are important to him.”

Mr. Sodi’s plan to program all year was good news for jogger Monticello native Marina Lombardi. Nesin Cultural Arts, a small grassroots visual and performing arts education program for the children and youth of the area. “Our population triples, quadruples in the summer, but those of us who live here year-round want to be able to do something in our community,” Mx said. Lombardi using gender neutral pronouns.

max. Lombardi said the area has become much more ethnically diverse lately, and expressed his satisfaction that Assembly has brought a wide variety of artists and artworks from around the world to the community. But they added that the new museum “doesn’t just serve tourists” and will help economically disadvantaged locals and those unfamiliar with the museum feel “that they can set foot in a place like this.”

Mr. Sodi said Casa Wabi was “emerging as a space to celebrate the arts and surrounding communities,” while saying he hopes Monticello will also help shape his new museum. “After all, art is to better understand ourselves, the world, and other people. There are elements of this in the works of all the artists here,” he said.



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