Contributed by Sharon Butler / I just read a piece by Rachel Corbett in artnet News about Mitchell Algus, a dealer who manages a small second-floor space on the corner of Delancy and Norfolk on the Lower East Side. He’s been mounting shows in different spaces for more than 25 years, all the while holding down a job as a science teacher at a Queens public high school. The article adds a little history:
In 1989, Algus partnered with his friend Licha Jimenez to run her gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He quit making his own work and focused on the space full time, recruiting historical figures such as Robert Mallary and Harold Stevenson to show there. In 1992, he opened his own gallery on Thompson Street in SoHo, alongside such up-and-coming dealers as Gavin Brown and Friedrich Petzel. David Zwirner opened up a couple blocks away, Algus said, trailing off. Two separate trajectories.
In the article, Algus laments the fact that his gallery has very little walk-in traffic anymore, and he blamed it on the art fairs, where all the collectors flock to the mall-like events instead of making egular visits to the galleries. What collectors forget is that while the art fairs have quantity, it’s at the galleries where they will find the most challenging work. That said, here are a few images of some thought-provoking paintings at the NADA fair, which was held not far from Algus’s space this year, on the west side of Soho.
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Studio Visit: James Rauchman
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Interview: Crystal �Kitty� Shimski with Dennis Kardon
