GalleryLower East Side
Spencer Brownstone Gallery
What to Expect
Step into Spencer Brownstone and your shoulders drop, your breath deepens, and the noise of the city falls away. Light pours through the skylights onto poured cement floors, and a small rock garden sits in the back. Industrial bones, Zen quiet, nothing fancy to distract.
The art matches the stillness. Sculptures made from metal sheets, rods, drywall, and automotive-grade paint. Materials you’d use to build a wall or furniture. (Sometimes the gallery shows pieces you can sit on.) When paintings are on view, they tend to be ethereal and atmospheric. The kind of work that gives you space to dream and drift.
The impact of art often has as much to do with your state of mind as the work itself. Spencer Brownstone makes room to clear away distractions and be alone with art and your thoughts in a city that doesn’t allow much of that.
About the Gallery
Spencer Brownstone opened the gallery in 1998 at 39 Wooster Street in SoHo. The program focuses on conceptual and post-conceptual art, with a long-standing commitment to showing artists across generations. The gallery moved to Suffolk Street in 2016.
In The Area
BookstoreLower East Side
Bluestocking Cooperative
Began as a woman's bookstore in 1999 and is now NYC’s only queer, trans, and sex worker-run, cooperatively-owned bookstore.
Art StoreLower East Side
Montana Shop NYC
The flagship of this sprawling art supply store. They’ve been selling art supplies for over 20 years. This is where the best graffiti artists come to get their cans.
Clothing StoreLower East Side
7115 Szeki
Named after its Hong Kong-born owner and designer Szeki, this is the store for inclusive, highly-wearable clothing that’ll see you through the NYC seasons. Good pants, big jackets, clever detailing.
RestaurantLower East Side
Balvanera
Grab a sunny spot under the awning for Argentinian steaks and family-style dishes. A crowd pleaser, where you can actually hear your dining buddy speak.