Ted Bonin, who with Carolyn Alexander founded the New York gallery Alexander and Bonin, died suddenly of natural causes at his Manhattan home on April 4 at the age of sixty-five. His death was first reported by art news. Since its founding in 1995 in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, which was not yet the artistic hub it was to become, Alexander and Bonin has distinguished itself by welcoming artists who resist easy categorization. The gallery has been instrumental in the success of Mona Hatoum, Ree Morton and Paul Thek, and has curated several exhibitions by Emily Jacir, Sylvia Plimack Mangold and Doris Salcedo, among others. Additionally, Alexander and Bonin was an early advocate for diversity, showing work by women artists and artists of color long before many of its peers. When Bonin died, the gallery represented a number of Latin American artists, including Jonathas de Andrade, Eugenio Dittborn, Diango Hernández, and Dalton Paula.
Ted Bonin was born in 1958 and grew up in the Boston seaside suburb of Beverly, Massachusetts. In 1976, at the age of eighteen, he moved to New York to attend Columbia University, where he studied art history. After graduating in 1980, he went to work for the Museum of Modern Art, as assistant to the director of the institution’s art loan service. It was at this time that he discovered Thek, with whom he formed close ties. Three years later, Bonin joined Brooke Alexander Gallery, founded by husband and wife team Brooke and Carolyn Alexander, where he eventually became director. In 1995, he and Carol launched their new gallery with the aim of showing emerging and mid-career contemporary artists.
Following his First show, photographs and videos by Willie Doherty, in 1996, Alexander and Bonin moved in 1997 to Tenth Avenue, then largely the provenance of lumber yards and used car dealerships. The gallery owners inaugurated their new space with an exhibition of sculptures by Willie Cole, followed by an exhibition of works by Rita McBride. All three artists would enjoy substantial and consistent representation by Alexander and Bonin in years to come, as would Thek, Morton, and the German sculptor Michael Buthe, thanks to Bonin’s connections to their fields. Bonin, who mounted Thek’s last exhibition during his lifetime, in 1988, would become a crucial figure behind the 2010 retrospective of his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Seeking more exhibition space, Alexander and Bonin moved at 47 Walker Street in TriBeCa in 2016. “The architecture and the feeling of the neighborhood reminds me of when I first went to galleries in the 70s and 80s,” Bonin told the New York Times This year. “When no one was talking about the market.” In keeping with this sentiment, the gallery welcomed visitors to the new space with an exhibition of photos and videos made in the early 1980s by Morton, Doherty and Mark Morrisroe.
“In 1995, when Ted and I started Alexander and Bonin, we shared the same goals, which were to represent artists and build their careers,” Carolyn Alexander said in a statement. “He was a generous and supportive colleague and our years of working together have been deeply rewarding for me and the artists we worked with. We join our colleagues, curators and artists he worked with in expressing our deep sadness at his death.
