Rebellious artist-curators stretch art world rules with experimental shows held at an Allen Street storefront and a Chinese kitchen supply store window (and closet).
Photography: © Beholdr. Photo by Effie Liu.
Downtown ingenuity (and a little rebellion) plays out in this 24/7 window gallery and inside a hidden art closet tucked in a restaurant supply store. The art experiments keep brewing at a second storefront space around the block on Allen Street. More than a gallery, this is aa a counterculture in the making.
Here, artists are curators and curators are artists, freely interchanging and moving between roles. Shows are often styled with the drama and flair of a fashion storefront and curated with no singular dominant viewpoint. It feels like experimental seas of ideas, with room for every kind of expression. It’s rare. It’s bold. And it’s so New York.
Artist, writer, and educator Andrew Paul Woolbright (Brooklyn Rail, SVA) founded Below Grand in 2017 as a scrappy artist-run project. It began as Super Dutchess. In 2020, Woolbright rebranded the space to Below Grand. What started as a solo effort has grown into a constantly evolving curatorial collective — a mix of old-timers and newcomers, teachers and students, building something bigger than the sum of its parts.
Want to know where art is headed next? Here are the ones to watch.