London’s Stephen Friedman is the latest dealer to announce a new location in Tribeca, the New York neighborhood that is fast becoming the go-to destination for art spaces.
Scheduled to open later this year, the space at 54 Franklin Street will be the first US location for the gallery, which opened in Mayfair, London in 1995. (In the fall, Stephen Friedman will also move its London location on Old Burlington Street – where it has remained since the gallery opened – to a space just around the corner from Cork Street.)
The gallery’s future Tribeca space features a neo-Romanesque facade, complemented by the neighborhood’s characteristic cast iron. The space dates from 1891 and still has the original glass facade, according to the gallery. The space previously housed Postmasters, one of the first New York galleries to migrate from Chelsea to Tribeca; the gallery left space last year following a dispute with its owner and has since adopted a nomadic model.
Friedman says while he’s ‘resisted’ opening a US outpost for years, the gallery’s growth since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has made this year a good time to open. a site in New York. The gallery already has a large base of American collectors, Friedman says, and a handful of artists, particularly British artists, who had no representation in New York, had asked Friedman if the gallery could “recreate our magic.” , he said. And when it came to opening a space in New York, Friedman says he knew where he needed to be.
“I headed straight for Tribeca — it was always the neighborhood I wanted to be in,” Friedman says, citing the neighborhood’s architecture, restaurants and proximity to co-workers he’s known for decades.
The gallery has appointed Alissa Friedman (the two are unrelated) as the gallery’s senior director for New York. She worked in New York art galleries for three decades. The gallery plans to use the New York space as a launch pad to dive into markets in other US cities, like Chicago, Friedman says. The gallery is hosting solo booths by artist Pam Glick at the Independent and Frieze New York shows this month.
Friedman is not alone – collector and dealer Lio Malca will open a new exhibition space on White Street this month, while Marian Goodman and Alexander Gray Gallery will open across from each other on Broadway in mid-2023 and early 2024, respectively. Timothy Taylor should also to relocate at Chelsea’s Tribeca this year.
