It still offers artists a venue, seven days a week, rather than a stipend or sales. As art largely abandoned the neighborhood, or perhaps vice versa, things only get worse. Its Broadway loft, opened in 1982, found itself part of Soho's rapid growth to the south and east. Then again, art and real estate have come and gone around Exit Art before, and they will again with Hudson Yards.

When it calls its reopening show 'The Reconstruction,' it could be speaking for more than art. One can definitely forget New York's perpetual plans for the raw neighborhood, south of Clinton (or Hell's Kitchen) near the city's troubled convention center. It invited entries, and I knew none of its roughly three dozen artists, chosen from some six hundred submissions. For its reopening exhibition, Exit Art discovers something of value in perpetual starts. Yet they end up anointing dealers and artists, in and beyond Chelsea, creating a kind of perpetual art fair for the age of globalization. Biennials, between the Whitney and abroad, diligently comb galleries and studios. One can almost forget the Chelsea scene and its pretensions just a few blocks south along Tenth Avenue. It gives new meaning to the bridge-and-tunnel crowd that flocks to a Soho that even Exit Art has left behind. As I left, I nearly wandered onto an exit ramp from the Lincoln Tunnel. AlternativesĮxit Art could have chosen its new location with its name in mind, not to mention its mission as an alternative to the Manhattan art world. A postscript eight years later says farewell to a co-founder and with her, ultimately, an institution. In its new home, the legendary alternative space leaves an entire exhibition under construction. Tired of high-rent galleries, fat artistic egos, and pompous subject matter? Consider Exit Art. Like everyone else, sometimes I get fed up with art. In New York City Exit Biennial: The Reconstruction Jeanette Ingberman: 1952–2011

Of Another Dimension by Jeanette Lynn