At 25 Allen Street, an inaugural group show curated by Saam Niami and Gabrielle Richardson, brings 20 New York-based artists together in a celebration of community and the city they call home.
A black-and-white banner by Ekene Ijeoma that reads “An Artist Survived Today” hangs over the entrance of 25 Allen Street between Hester and Canal. Floor-to-ceiling windows of the former methadone clinic offer a preview of what’s inside: an inaugural group show curated by Saam Niami and Gabrielle Richardson titled “New York… NOW!” and featuring works by 18 New York-based artists both across mediums and career levels, including Miles Greenberg, Baseera Khan, Gala Prudent, Lula Hyers, Taylor Simmons, and more.
It’s hard to generate a buzz in New York, with multiple openings and parties happening every night and fliers filled with the who’s who of the scene. But despite this, Niami and Richardson have pulled it off. “This show is community-oriented, and we have a relationship with everyone involved, even if it’s a relationship over the Internet admiring someone’s work,” says Richardson. “There is connection and a mutual exchange of care that has been highlighted throughout this whole process.” “Everybody in the show is like one degree of separation from either of us,” adds Niami.
At last week’s opening, throngs of people showed up to see the art and stayed to mingle out front and on the rooftop. I ran into curator, gallerist, and writer K.O. Nnamdie on my way there, and soon after we entered we spotted Company Gallery director Ken Castaneda, together we took in the dizzying high-energy, high-headcount scene. Emerging artists, art world insiders, and New York’s downtown crowd all rubbed shoulders, including models Alex Consani and Faither Harper, artist Jesse Gouveia, curator Sienna Fekete, writers Whitney Mallett and Laura Pritcher. The list goes on. A week in, and 25 Allen continues to draw a crowd, partly thanks to its public programming that includes a recent sold-out reading of Max Wolf Friedlich’s new play and a forthcoming reading of Kit Zauhar’s latest play on November 7.
Just a few months ago, in August, I was driving upstate with Niami and Richardson when their gallery was merely an idea. They finished each other’s sentences, outlining their ambitious dream to stage a group show featuring dozens of New York artists without institutional support. Rain was pouring down, and it was pitch black out, but their vision was as clear as daylight. They are going to do it, I thought as I made a mental note of their opening date. And here we are.
In a very New York turn of fate, the gallery was born from a chance meeting with a stranger. Niami was at his day job when he first met Geoff Bartakovics. Soon, a conversation started: Bartakovics had a vacant spot below his apartment, which he owned with his business partner Javier Martinez. What if they used it to stage an exhibition? An exhibition of all New York artists at that. The idea snowballed, gaining momentum, until it burst on the scene last Wednesday. “It is going to be part of a hotel complex eventually,” explains Bartakovics. “But you know, we had this space in the meantime, so we thought, What could we do with it? and it just made sense to give it to the art community to do something interesting. It turned out so much better than I could have even hoped for.”
“At any moment, we were like, this could fall apart,” says Richardson, reflecting on the months leading up to the opening, when she and Niami cleared the space, removed the doors, and painted the walls white.” Authentic, heartfelt, a dream realized: “About a week ago everything just started to click,” shares Niami. It wasn’t until install that their vision started to manifest, filling the rooms with art and an artist community. “We were like give us this gallery, and we’ll do what we can, and we did what we could. I think we did a good job,” Richardson says, surveying the space as artists mingle around their works. “We’re not taking a cut from the sales and there is no requirement to sell,” she adds. “We’re doing this out of our love for our city, and our love for art.”
For some, the show was a reunion: “My best friend Astrid [Terrazas] is in the show, and so is my old studio mate Tara [Atefi], then I’ve been an admirer of Taylor’s work for so long. It’s a full circle,” says Praise Fuller, who has a suite of ethereal cyanotype ceramic squares on view. For others, it was an art world debut. Michaila Nodel-Kishner, 26, whose neon embroidery works emanate with queer joy, hadn’t shown in New York since they were in high school. “New York has so many different kinds of people, and they did a good job of representing many different types of work,” they say, noting that they hadn’t met any of the other artists in person until install day.
For 23-year-old Bronx native Nuvany David, this is the first time she’s exhibited her family portraits in a gallery. “It’s so surreal. Being able to make a C-type print of my great aunt is special,” she shares. “It’s beautiful to honor them this way. And for them to be able to see themselves in a space like this, I feel like it has never been done before,” she adds, noting that her family members are planning to visit the gallery.
Standouts include Atlanta-born Simmons’ gestural slice-of-life painting, However Long I Stay, 2024, which depicts a group of day laborers resting outside a Home Depot. Iranian-American artist Atefi presents Vault, 2021, featuring a red-cloaked woman flanked by cherubs at the base of a looming building, while ominous figures lurk in the background. Dean Majd, a Queens native with Palestinian roots, explores men’s mental health through his photographs, including the elegiac image Rosebush at Astoria Park the Night We Lost Suba (Suba’s Glow), 2020, depicting a glowing pink rose. Brooklyn artist Gala Prudent created a sculpture featuring Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Plato’s Republic strapped to an alabaster rock. A framed grid of photos by Brooklyn-raised artist Lula Hyers showcases her nude friends in sensual, restful poses, while Houston-born Chris Al-Jumah contributes an untitled chair made from polished Persian silk wood.
Some artists, like Simmons, made works specifically for the exhibition. “A lot of my work is about my present day and things I observe, what I’m interested in,” he explains of his tender portraits of immigrants seemingly from Sudan and other parts of Africa resting under a tree as they wait for work. “There’s been this big conversation about gentrification and the changing faces of the neighborhood, so I thought it was interesting to show a different side, especially right now,” he says. “Despite the economy and the craziness of America today, we still keep on… Life makes a way.”
Life makes a way throughout the gallery, roses bursting forth, gentle gazes and intimate slices of life. Many works are figurative and painterly, holding personal truths and echoing Simmons’ mantra. Elsewhere, new friends Ekene Ijeoma and Ridikkuluz stand side-by-side in front of the latter’s painting of a young man in a keffiyeh framed against a moonlit sky; he gazes onward, eyes full of hope and sorrow, as a demon-like dog tears at his shirt displaying the word “Palestine” and exposing his midriff and white thong underneath. “There are a lot of personal stories happening here, and it’s nice to know everybody’s lived experience,” says Ridikkuluz. “They are holding space for everybody,” he says of Niami and Richardson, “especially being Palestinian, that’s not always the case. So it’s nice to feel like I can be myself.”
Acceptance and care—concepts more often linked to community work than traditional galleries—thrive here, a testament to the budding gallery’s vision. “I knew they had a hunger for greatness, so I expected something remarkable… I just didn’t know what it would be, but it’s beautiful,” says Ridikkuluz. Beauty recurs throughout the works, even as they grapple with themes of death, loss, and struggle. In a sense, this reflects the heart of the city.
“Being an artist in New York is the worst and the best at the same time,” says Jade Thacker, standing before her sunset-hued portrait of a woman. “New York kicks your ass, and then something great happens when you’re on the floor, keeled over,” she explains with a laugh. As for this show? “It’s reflective of what New York is right now: The mid-tier galleries are going through it, and if you’re not a big blue-chip, it’s tough,” she says. “It’s really nice for artists to have something happen outside of the art market. It’s fresh. It’s exciting. And I’m happy to be a part of it.” Painter Bre Andy agrees, “It’s by us, for us.”
Ask anyone what is New York now? And a duality emerges: beauty and grit, a shadow and a lightness that, at least thematically, makes the urban hub a readymade muse for artists. For the Philadelphia-born, New York-based Richardson, it is a giant puzzle: “Things aren’t always fitting together, she offers. “It makes a pretty picture, but that shit is hard. Thousands of pieces, and it’s still being built to this day.”
“This is my 10th year in New York, and I’ve seen it all change so much, and I’ve seen myself change so much,” says painter and ceramicist Astrid Terrazas, whose playful, surrealist painting is accompanied by a ceramic work hanging above it. “People love to say that 10 years and you’re a New Yorker, but I don’t buy into that. I feel like I’m still very much a transplant, and I do a lot of tenant organizing, so I try to put work into owning that I’m a guest in the city and also a guest in this country since I am originally from Juarez.”
For Niami, who grew up in the Bay Area but has visited family in the city every year since he was a child, New York is a romantic place full of possibility despite its problems. “I love this city. I love everybody here. I will never leave,” he emphasizes, adding. “This project has been one long proof of concept: New York is not dead. We still have some of the best, hardest working artists and creatives in the world living here, together, supporting each other.”
Richardson agrees: It’s what you make it. “My family is from the Caribbean, and they moved to New York City during World War II… It’s a place where my family came for refuge, but also a place where they started their own families. It’s a safe place; it’s a hard place, but it is soil that something can grow in.”
New York… NOW! runs until November 15, 2024, at 25 Allen Street, New York, NY.
Words by Meka Boyle
