Parent Company

Parent Company is host to two spaces. The original is deep down in a basement with cement floors and low ceiling which you reach by descending a steep set of stairs below a sidewalk hatch. After its recent expansion into the sunny storefront above, the gallery sweetly renamed the basement, which it now rents out, Stepchild. Every family has one.

Founder Ada Potter knows her way around the nonprofit world from her membership in the collaborative feminist art space and collective, A.I.R. Making Parent Company a nonprofit was partly a way of taking some pressure off: less emphasis on selling, more room for nurturing artists, ideas, and shows that need a time to grow up.

That spirit carries into the work. Expect single artist shows, group shows, collaborative shows with neighboring institutions, and pop-ups downstairs with artists who make things out of what’s close to home. Tools from the toolshed or hardware store. Ephemera and photographs found in the attic of a house that’s been in the same family for generations. Odd, practical things you find in neighborhood shops in Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

All made strange and new. Like a family reunion with different characters, curious histories, and an unmistakable resemblance.

Parent Company comes to you from artist Ada Potter who brings an artist’s spirit to running a gallery space. She has an MFA from Pratt and undergraduate degree in art and art history from Barnard. From 2016-2023, she ran SCREEN, an email-based art “space” that produced artworks, sent and received via email. She opened Parent Company in 2023. The name comes the way she thinks about representing emerging artists: as an extension of care work. Kind of like being a parent, not nine to five, but 24 hours a day.